What it is like to be traded

Matt Cooke recently shared his impressions of his first experience of being traded. Here's he what he wrote in first person in the Washington Post, as told to Tarik El-Bashir.

"Being an unrestricted free agent, and the fact that they hadn't talked to me, kind of tipped me off that something might happen. I tried not to think about that option leading up to the deadline. I didn't treat those games any different, other than lightly going over the issue with our children, so if it happened, it wouldn't be so shocking to them.

In the three games leading up to the trade, I had been chipping in on the second line, having some success. I was just getting ready for practice when [assistant coach] Rick Bowness came and told me not to go on the ice. He said nothing happened yet, but just in case.

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