Sea Dogs Summoned To League Hearing

SAINT JOHN – Well, this is bizarre.

The Saint John Sea Dogs announced this morning via press release that the team has been summoned to hearing to discuss the Ryan Tesink trade that went down on January 2.

Here’s what the release said:

The Saint John Sea Dogs announced today the team has been summoned to a hearing to discuss the deal that sent Ryan Tesink to the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada in exchange for the Sea Dogs’ own 2013 1st-round pick. 

The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League is hosting the hearing in Montreal on Monday to discuss the case put forward by the Armada. 

“We have always made the health and safety of our players a top priority,” says Sea Dogs President Wayne Long. “We will be reiterating our point on Monday, but ultimately this is a league matter.”

Tesink did quite well in his first two games with the Armada, recording a goal and three assists. He went pointless in his next four games and has not played since. He hasn’t been in action since January 13.

This article in le Journal de Montreal says it’s not clear when Tesink will be back in the Armada lineup and that the club filed a complaint to the league regarding the trade.

The Armada seem to think that the Sea Dogs were aware of Tesink’s injury prior to the trade, which would be strange since he was playing regularly with Saint John before being dealt. Tesink then played in six games with the Armada and – I would hope – they wouldn’t have played him if he wasn’t healthy. So, how are the Armada sure he wasn’t injured in one of those games? And Tesink had knee surgery last season, so obviously there was risk involved in trading for him.

Bizarre situation. Not really sure what would happen if the Sea Dogs lost this case, but it would be devastating if they had to send their first-round pick back to Blainville-Boisbriand.

Hopefully this ends better than the Maxime Villemaire situation last season.