SELLER'S MARKET IN JUNIOR HOCKEY

For people who really follow junior hockey, not just slum like yours truly, Dec. 1 is the time where they start perking up their ears for trade rumours and such. From the OHL down to Junior D (excuse me, Junior Development), it's a sign of which teams are really serious about a playoff run, and who's decided to wait 'til next year.

When you trade your co-captain, as Brian Kilrea's Ottawa 67's did today by trading veteran d-man Elgin Reid to the Owen Sound Attack, what does that tell you?

Ottawa's won three straight but are tied with Oshawa — who, coincidentally, is in town tonight — for second-last in the league. If it wasn't for Kilrea's mastery of his old pupil, Kingston Frontenacs coach Bruce Cassidy (three wins in four meetings), things would really be dire over on Bank St.

The "Sound Attack" (hat tip to The Colbert Report) is sixth in the OHL's Western Conference. Small world: One of Reid's new teammates, Dalyn Flatt, played for the Manitoba Junior Hockey League's Swan Valley Stampeders in '02-03 when I covered that league for the Portage la Prairie Daily Graphic. How'd he end up in Ontario?