You Don't Just Buy Them a Plane Ticket Out of Town

If you've ever wanted a little insight into how the front office of an NHL team does it's job, well, you got it thanks to the Islanders' P.R. Guru Chris Botta. Botta has a blog going, but my main reason for posting about it is a pretty neat clip about the process for announcing a trade to the world. For those of us who have never been behind the scenes, it's an interesting read. He even manages to take a shot at what I assume is Edmonton's Kevin Lowe and his actions surrounding the Ryan Smyth trade. That's pure speculation on my part, but I don't believe that it's too hard to read between the lines.

"...Nevertheless, it sometimes hasn't stopped a (cough, Canadian) GM from contacting a (cough, Canadian) reporter whom he feels he owes a scoop and then some player ultimately learns his fate in the most unprofessional way possible."

Just an fyi; throughout the article Botta keeps saying how a trade will go down today for the Isles. Thanks to being in the future, or that being in the past... whatever... well, we now know that the trade he is referring to is yesterday's trade between the Isles and Boston involving Ben Walter and Petteri Nokelainen.