Big trade yielding big results
By: Damien Cox Sports Columnist, Published on Wed May 21 2014, Toronto Star – Even now, you can hear the pensiveness in Mike Kelly’s voice as he discusses the trade.
Yes, even now.
“My history has always been really conservative,” says the Guelph Storm general manager. “But the market had changed.”
Kelly’s willingness to ride the waves of change in early December, it’s pretty clear now, essentially rubber-stamped an OHL championship for his team and the favourite’s position at the 96th Memorial Cup competition.
The Storm were a good team when November rolled over into December. But on the second day of that month, Kelly altered the entire balance of power in his division, conference and league by acquiring winger Kerby Rychel and defenceman Nick Ebert from the Windsor Spitfires.
That it was Rychel’s father, Warren, who made the deal on behalf of the Spitfires, caught most of the headlines, along with the fact it was the third time the younger Rychel and Ebert had been traded as a package during their major junior careers.
Windsor was a very good team itself that would go on to make the playoffs, but the Spitfires realized they couldn’t compete with the Storm, Erie Otters and London Knights in their own conference, let alone anyone in the east.
So Windsor accepted an 18-year-old player and eight draft picks, and the Storm went about dismantling the rest of the OHL.
With Guelph now guaranteed a spot in Sunday’s Memorial Cup final, Kelly still feels he gave up a lot. But he also believes he got more than he thought he was getting.
“Kerby was 10 per cent better than I thought he was,” says Kelly. “But Ebert was 30 per cent better than we thought he was.”
