As days go, Wednesday, March 5 is a biggie. I mean, it doesn't get much bigger than this. Seriously, if a day got any bigger, where would we even put it? Yep, tomorrow is huge. Gargantuan. Altogether epic.
Or not.
For those who live on the remote unsportsmanlike fringes of civilization -- unimaginable places inhabited by sadsacks who have simply packed up and gotten the puck out of here -- let me be the first to tell you: tomorrow is the National Hockey League's trade deadline (official deadline is 3 p.m., for those keeping track at home). Major, monstrous, mind-boggling deals are brokered, big-name players change addresses and on-ice attire, and the future fortunes of franchises are forged.
Or... not.
So just how altogether epic is this day? Well, each year Sports Talk Television and Sports Talk Radio dedicate the entire day -- dawn-to-dusk coverage, a marathon of monumental chin-wagging -- to over-analyzing all trades, rumors, and stuff the Talking Heads just make up on the spur of the moment to kill a little time. And all of that coverage is just the icing on the cake. For the six months leading up to the big event the networks tirelessly promote Trade Deadline Day to the point of distraction. To the point where viewers start to feel like they're being waterboarded into watching.
But, hey, it all comes together, and it all becomes worthy of the hype when the cameras come to life, the microphones are clicked on, the On Air Personalities up the effervescence, and Trade Deadline Day begins with a big Bang.
Or not.
You see, the trouble with Trade Deadline Day is that all-too-often, nothing happens. No deals of any importance are made. Nothing of any interest occurs. And we are left with gaping holes in the blanket coverage. Holes to be filled with awkward silence, fake gravitas, moronic monologues, numbing dialogue, and more non-sequiturs than anyone who didn't have beer for breakfast can handle.
Honestly, you won't find this much filler in a big bag of dog food. And sometimes the entire coverage, the whole darn day, seems like the punchline to the old joke about a slow news day, wherein the newscaster kicks-off a telecast on a with the following: "City Hall did not burn down last night."
"We're on hour three of our Trade Deadline coverage," Anchorman says, as the cameras pan the studio, capturing reporters feverishly working the phones in search of leads, or frantically pulling out nose hairs in an effort to stay awake, "and we have no trades to announce, but..."
And the but is followed by a plethora of what ifs and maybes and our sources are telling us. At some point everyone is reduced to bantering. It's certainly a case of no news being bad news. No news simply leaves the Talking Heads dangling in the wind, trying to stay upbeat and interesting. Anecdotes are brought out of storage and dusted off. And then, finally, thank God, a trade:
A fourth-line winger on a losing team in the east is heading west for a fourth-line winger on... another losing team. There's a collective gasp in the studios. Followed by stellar big-picture analysis. What this really means for both losing teams (in a word, nothing). Eventually, everyone is all talked out and the Talking Heads go back to doing that dance that was popular in high school gymnasiums so many misty years ago.
Yep, day-long coverage of sports news-hounds doing The Squirm...
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