Matt Xie

Trade Season

The months before the trading deadline in professional hockey leagues, or "trade season", leave many players with only a few days' notice to uproot their lives and families to follow the demands of their career.

“My thesis, "The Good Game," focused on the physical, cultural, and emotional toll hockey culture has on the individual and the community.Moving is often an incredibly turbulent time both materially and emotionally, and many players have talked about their experience being traded as if it were an abrupt abandonment, with many players finding out they were traded not from management but from other teammates or even the media. Depending on the timing, most players often only have a few days at most to uproot their entire lives, including that of their partners and children, and move to a completely different place in time to play in their new team's next game.This illustration was based off of John Scott's story, where the NHL traded him from the Arizona Coyotes down to an AHL team in Newfoundland a week before his wife gave birth to twins.”