On December 30th, the Screaming Eagles and Moosheads face-off at Centre 200 in Game 1 of the first ever “Hurley Cup”, leading up to the game we will be counting down the Top 10 moments in this heated provincial rivalry…
#7: Boomerang Trade
In January of 2003, Cape Breton’s Pascal Vincent and Halifax’s Marcel Patenaude did the thinkable- not only did the Eagles & Mooseheads deal with each other, they teamed up for one of the most controversial trades in league history.
It began when Cape Breton dealt stars Stuart MacRae and Steve Villeneuve along with tough guy George Davis to Halifax, in exchange for draft choices and some players castoff from the Mooseheads roster. Picks would be returned in June to Halifax for key forwards Jean-François Cyr, François-Pierre Guénette, Marc-André Bernier and stud blueliner Alexandre Picard. But then, in a twist, in the middle of the 2003-04 season, Villeneuve would return to Cape Breton, and in the summer of 2004, Guénette, Bernier, and Picard would return to Halifax. It would be forever known as the “boomerang trade”.
Halifax would go to the league final in 2003 with their Cape Breton add-ons, and again in 2005 with the return of the “boomerang boys”. But although Cape Breton had great success in the 2003-04 regular season, finishing 49-16-5 to earn a first round bye, they would then be eliminated in five games by a Chicoutimi Saguenéens team that finished 28 points behind Cape Breton that season. While many problems plagued the Eagles in the 2004 playoffs, much disdain from the Cape Breton fanbase was directed towards the trio returning to Halifax- in particular Guénette and Bernier.
On September 19th, 2004, the two sides met for the first time since the completion of the deal and combined for over 80 penalty minutes in an emotional contest that saw the Eagles rally from down 3-1 to earn a tie. For just the fifth time in his four year junior career, Bernier fought, scrapping with Cape Breton newcomer David Victor. With the complicated deal in the rearview mirror, the rivalry between Nova Scotia’s two teams was once again alive and well with fresh storylines.
The legacy of the transaction would be felt for quite some time. One of the players “cast-off” from Halifax was none other than Adam Pardy, who would star in Cape Breton for two years and play over 300 games in the NHL. The two teams also swapped first round picks in 2004 as part of the exchange, and the Eagles would win the inaugural QMJHL draft lottery to draft James Sheppard, a native of the Halifax area and a future NHLer, at #1 in 2004 (with Halifax’s pick). Unimpressed with the antics of the Cape Breton and Halifax, the league implemented a new rule stating a player could no longer be traded back to his old team for a period of three years (it has since been reduced to two.)