Woke up this morning to a story about Cam Atkinson having hosted a “Skate with Cam” charity event in the OhioHealth Ice Haus on Saturday, despite the fact the 32-year-old forward was traded by the Blue Jackets to the Philadelphia Flyers for former Jackets draftee Jakub Voracek on July 24.
A photo of a smiling Atkinson talking to two young Jackets’ fans anchored the first sports page of the Monday Columbus Dispatch. He explained in the story that the trade didn’t end his Columbus connection, saying that he and his wife Natalie intended to keep their house and return to central Ohio in the summers when the hockey season ended. He repeated that he felt no bitterness over the surprising trade, that playing for the new team would challenge him to be better and might even give him another chance to chase the Stanley Cup while the Jackets undertake a rebuilding project.
That’s the best way for him to approach the situation and I really hope it works out for him. He proved to be a standup guy all of the years I covered him as a sports columnist for the Dispatch. Journalists aren’t supposed to root, but it was hard not to pull for an undersized guy taken by Columbus in the sixth round of the 2008 draft who scored more goals (213) for the team than all but former 2002 No. 1 overall pick Rick Nash.
But this isn’t about Atkinson’s skill or his grit; it’s about the trade.
Decades ago, probably in the late 1980s when I was covered the Cincinnati Reds for the Dispatch, I remember having a conversation with a player who was about to become a free agent about “loyalty” to the team. Sorry to say that I’m not sure enough to say who the player was to name him – it’s not important really – but I do remember his answer.
“Loyalty only goes one way,” he said. It was his way of saying that when a player has the ability to call his own shots and wants to test the waters and maybe even sign elsewhere, management and fans play the loyalty card. They don’t understand why Joe Ingrate wants to play for team that has a better chance of winning, play in a bigger market where he might be on a larger stage or simply earn a bigger paycheck.
The hero becomes a heel. ingate is told that this is why we can’t win a championship here, that he is bailing on the fans and bailing on his teammates. If he really cared about his team, his fans and the city, he would sign a long-term deal and stay here.
That old Reds player articulated his frustration with that argument, frustration I heard many times from many different players after that. Players know the deal. Loyalty is a one-way street.
“The day the club decides it is in its best interest to trade or release you, that will be your last day with the club,” he said. “Even if you have a no-trade contract, they will put pressure on you to accept a trade. Where’s all that loyalty then?”
This all came back to me because that scenario seemed to have been written specifically for Atkinson. During a period when many fans and management have wrung their hands over decisions made by some talented Blue Jackets’ veterans to take their talents elsewhere rather than re-sign with Columbus, the Jackets traded one of the few players who made just that commitment. Atkinson signed a seven-year, $41.125 million contract extension in November, 2017, after a season when he scored a career high 35 goals and has 27 assists.
In other words, Atkinson did what Seth Jones, Sergei Bobrovsky, Artemi Panarin and others wouldn’t do; he put his name on a long-term deal and made a pledge to the team, to the fans and to Columbus. Yet when Jackets GM Jarmo Kekäläinen decided that the play-making Voracek would be a better fit for the club with sharpshooter Patrik Laine than a sniper such as Atkinson, he traded the team’s most loyal star without a moment’s hesitation.
Kekalainen called it “a hockey trade” and I don’t quibble with that; maybe the club will win a few more games with this combo than the other one and make Laine happy enough to sign a long-term deal in Columbus. Of course, it is also a deft way for the GM to remove any emotion that might come with trading a popular, 10-year veteran who has been active in local charities, one who has provided exactly the support for the team and the city that the team’s management has found lacking in so many others.
Do other players fail to see the irony in this?
Doubtful.
