Good-bye Jan Hedja!

Well the other big CBJ news in our family (the only news, if you ask certain people, haha) is that defenseman Jan Hedja (Yahn Heh-da) was traded to the Colorado Avalanche. For some reason, my wife really *really* liked this guy. She said it was partly because he was so handsome and partly because he did a great job as a defenseman. Well, I can't really talk about his looks (not my type, haha) and he wasn't setting the defense world on fire, as it were, so...don't tell the wife but I never really saw the appeal. I mean, sure, he was a pretty consistent player. He was friends with one of my Japanese co-workers (they lived in the same neighborhood and their daughters went to the same preschool). But kind of like Jake Voracek and Mike Blunden and even Mike Commodore, I'm not going to miss him all that much. If he had been a *bit* more consistent (ie "better"?) maybe I'd feel bad for losing him. It sounds like he wanted a 4 year deal and CBJ management only wanted to give him a 3 year deal...so he went to Colorado, which I think agreed to his 4 year request. The bad thing as far as I'm concerned is that he evidently liked living in Columbus and didn't want to leave. Kinda like Kyle Wilson (who we met at a meet & greet) but them's the breaks...

We got Jan Hedja to sign Yuko's CBJ jacket and my hat at the November 12, 2010 Autograph Night. That's Nikita Filatov next to him, who is also no longer with the team.
In fact, of the 35 guys who were on last year's team roster, approximately 18 of them are gone.