The new guy's thoughts on The Trade

Let me start from the beginning . When I heard about The Trade involving Smitty , Jokinen , Halpern and a fourth round draft choice for Brad Richards and Johan Holmqvist , I was shocked . As I was driving home from work , (that was when I heard about it) I did not know what to think . I was so shocked . Smitty is a great goaltender , Jussi is/was a fan favorite here in Dallas , and Halpern is one of my favorite players because of his performance in last year's playoff series with Vancouver on the line with Lundqvist and Stu (and because of his charities) . I watched the game against the Blues in shock . That game seemed to show that Our Dallas Stars were in shock and missed their players as well . By the team still winning , they showed that they did not need those guys to win . I went to work the following day still in shock . I worked like Our Dallas Stars played the first and second period against the Blues . My head was not in my work . I was doing my job with my sad emotions weighing me down . That night , I listened to the Tampa Bay game against the Wild and desipte the loss , I felt MOUNTAINS better . When Halpern won the first star of the game , I was greatly encouraged . Jokinen had four quality shots on a line with St. Louis and Lecavalier . Smitty did well , for being abandoned by his swiss cheese defensemen . Our (ex) players will do well down in Tampa and I felt much , much better after the game . I knew then that Jokinen would score FAR more and his goal-scoring will pick up quite a bit . Seeing Halpern play that well helped me to realise that he will excell in his checking and scoring gameplay style . I know that Smitty lost his first outing , but now he knows that he cannot depend on his defensemen in Tampa and he will learn that it is just him back there . He will definately improve his game to a point that he will not need them as much as he depended on the defensemen in Dallas . He will excell down there and I have alot of hope for him and his career . After the Tampa Bay , game , I felt a little better about The Trade . After hearing about what went on at the Dr. Pepper Stars Center in practice , I was encouraged somewhat . I had heard that Brad Richards was taking one-timers and fitting in well with the rest of Our Dallas Stars players . That was a decidedly good thing and I had visions of Stanley Cup wins dancing in my head . When I heard that Holmqvist spent the whole practice with everyone of our goalie coaches , I was terrified . It has been said that all Stars players and fans had better pray to the hockey gods that we never have to see Holmqvist in net . I had also heard that we will see him start in net sometime next week . Our Stars' coaches want him to get the feel of things . I am scared , but there is little I can do . I had already bought tickets to the game on the 28th to see Our Stars take on the Blackhawks . Before we went to the game , I was still withholding my judgement on whether or not it was a good trade . I wanted to see how Richards played with MY team . After seeing Richards play with Our Dallas Stars , I know we got a decent trade (I am still kind of bothered by the fourth round draft pick being traded away or I would say it was a great trade) . Our Stars did very well last night in a 7-4 victory . It was only our defense that did not perform at the top of their skill level . I am satisfied with the trade , now . I can still see those visions of Stanley Cups dancing in my head . Now let us all hope that we can see those visions become realtity .

Two side notes ;
I have heard that many of The Stars' clean up staff and many of the servers on board the Stars' private jet are very , very pleased that Halpern is gone . Apparently , he was very picky about what he ate on the plane and gave them a tough time . The poor people who cleaned up behind him have also been heard saying that he makes a terrible mess and they are glad to see him go . I was interveiwed on Stars Live (a local cable show that runs before Stars' games on FoxSports South West) by Ric Renner . I was terribly nervous but was very excited to do it . He ended up asking me many questions but only two seconds of the interveiw made it on the air . Oh , well . It was still novel to be on television . Oh , and not only does Ric Renner have terrible hair in real life , Jeff K does a great impression of him . You should ask him to do his impression of Renner . My wife and I both laughed , HARD .