It isn't fair

In my last post I went into some detail about a situation with a friend of mine. The last 2 days have been a mixture of feelings regarding friends. First off as for right now anyways things look good for my buddy, he finally got on that plane and is right where he should be. I'll be sure to let everyone know where he lands up playing this season, my guess is AHL or at the very least ECHL. There's the good part of my week so far. The bad, funny enough has to do with other good friend on mine who happens to play on the team...Well at least he did, until yesterday. Being so close to an entire team of major junior players is rough stuff sometimes. O:k now I'll admit sometimes it does seems a little cool, when these guys go pro and make 'the show'. I can say hey look it's my buddy. I have sense of pride when it comes to them as silly as that sounds to some. Now as I said in my last post, hockey players are a different breed, it's not all peaches. Yesterday we found out that JF was heading home. He's an overager (overager= 20yr old) this season and under QMJHL rules a team can carry only 4 until the trading deadline in the first week of Jan. and only 3 overagers can be dressed at once for a game. After the deadline only 3 20yr olds can be on the roster. So as you imagine teams usually don't drag out the process and have their 20yr olds basically picked going into training camp. JF was in a unique place though. The last 2 years have seen him have 2 major injuries which have limited his playing time which of course effects development of the player. Keep in mind the type of hockey I'm speaking of is a development type league. It's all about coming into the player you can be. Due to injuries which lead to lack of ice time he was passed over in the NHL draft in his draft year. Coming into training camp the Herd had picked up overager Ryan Seymour from Bathurst, along with Seymour was our number 1 goalie, Jeremy Duchesne and blueliner Luciano Lomanno (aka Loutch). Loutch happens to be JFs best friend and also the guy JF would have to battle for the last overagers spot. Duchesne (unless he were to go pro) is a guarantee for one of the O.A spots and Seymour was brought in for a reason, his leadership is needed here and he was a former captain for the Titan. Loutch has more experience because he had much better luck on the injury front. Although in my opinion, Lomanno is no where close to being a overage caliber player in this league. It's nothing personal...He's a good guy but I swear the guy has cement blocks attached to his skates. The problem here is I'm so close that even though I can say honestly that neither Loutch or JF is good enough to play such a role on the team, they also happen to be friends of mine. I hate it when guys get cut or traded. I knows it's a part of the game and for the most part I take it pretty well. JF though is my favorite player and a guy I happened to grow pretty close to in the last 3 years. I have two really strong feelings about this whole thing. The first is anger, mostly directed at the GM of the club. Without boring you all with more details of this whole thing let's just say I think the way he handled this was classless and disrespectful. The other emotion is obviously sadness. I don't want JF to go back to Montreal and I know he's considering his options right now. I'll be able to be at least be somewhat happy if he stays here in Hali. There are a ton of playing options for him within the city, plus he already attends school here and such. I dunno....All I do know is I'll miss seeing him in a Moose jersey and I'll be wearing my #39 Brault jersey for a long time coming so no worries, he's still being represented at the MC!