Gare Joyce

Gare Joyce writes regularly on junior hockey for Sportsnet.ca. A veteran journalist, Joyce is the author of Future Greats and Heartbreaks: A Year Undercover in the Secret World of NHL Scouts, When the Lights Went Out: How One Brawl Ended Hockey's Cold War and Changed the Game and Sidney Crosby: Taking the Game by Storm. He also writes for ESPN The Magazine, espn.com and several Canadian magazines.

Wednesday's game against Belleville didn't look like fun for John Tavares, but beginning this weekend the games are going to become more enjoyable.

Editors Note: John Tavares has been traded to the London Knights.

BELLEVILLE, ON --

John Tavares put on a remarkably professional performance for an 18-year old.

"It was a hard game," he said, shaking his head, looking weary.

He wasn't talking about beating Sweden in the gold-medal game of the world under-20s, nor coming within a breath of elimination in the semi final against Russia. No, the hard game was nothing momentous, nothing historic. It was just another date on the Ontario Hockey League schedule: the Oshawa Generals at the Belleville Bulls at the Yardmen Arena Wednesday night.

It was almost certainly the last game that Tavares will ever play for the Generals. He had no chance to wave to the home fans for the support that they gave him through three-and-a-half seasons. No chance to take a bow. It was just a date between a very good Belleville Bulls team and an Oshawa squad that, with the conspicuous exception of Tavares, is average at best and was a lot less than that Wednesday.

Tavares had many highlight reel plays leading Canada to a fifth straight world junior crown. Wednesday night glory was in short supply however, consisting only of a brief ceremony at centre ice before the national anthem and a round of polite applause from the Belleville fans (and one not nearly as long or as exuberant as the one given to local favourite P.K. Subban, Tavares’s sidekick through six games in Ottawa).

Tavares scored in the first period Wednesday, picked up an assist, and occasionally flashed his skill in the open ice. Still, he was unrecognizable as the player who won the world junior tournament MVP. Against the U.S., Tavares rose to the occasion and pulled Canada back into a game that looked out of reach, but against Belleville he couldn’t do it again on his own. After the gold medal game against Sweden, Tavares exulted but after the Belleville game he just bolted, leaving the ice without a backward look.

Belleville beat Oshawa 8-2 and Tavares was on the ice for five goals against. At his lowest moment, the home side scored twice on one of his shifts in the second period. It’s hard to imagine but it could have been worse — Oshawa coach Chris DePiero played Tavares sparingly in the last couple of periods, well below his usual workload and he wasn’t saving him for a later Generals date.

DePiero was just insuring that the team that lands him before the OHL’s trading deadline on Friday won’t receive damaged goods.

Before he boarded the team bus for the trip back along a snowy stretch of Highway 401, Tavares seemed less tired from the evening’s exertions than by the season-long distraction of trade rumours.

"Everyone has been talking about (the trade) but I’ve been dealing with it since last summer, since last season ended," he said. "I’ve prepared myself for it. It was good to get on the ice and into a game. It’s a relief to get out there. It’s where I feel most comfortable."

Tavares tried to see the good in what was an awkward situation.

"It was nice to be back with the guys," he said of his Generals teammates. "We’ve got a great bunch this year. It was an unfortunate result tonight, but it was great to celebrate the gold with them."

Sentiment aside, it was a game that many, and almost certainly Tavares himself, thought he wouldn’t have to play. The Generals were contenders who hit a patch of bad luck last spring, but are now just another team with no hope for the remained of the season.

Before Monday night’s gold-medal game, Sportnet.ca’s Patrick King reported that Oshawa had agreed on a deal in principal that would send Tavares to the London Knights in return for gift-wrapped players, including forwards Phil Varone and Christian Thomas (son of former NHLer Steve Thomas) and defenceman Scott Valentine, a stocking stuffed with a draft consideration plus a card with a cheque folded into it.

Recent player acquisitions by the few other legitimate contenders should only confirm that London will be Tavares’s ultimate OHL destination.

The Windsor Spitfires, the league’s strongest team for most of the season, this week acquired from Kitchener defenceman Ben Shutron, goaltender Josh Unice and forward Scott Timmins — so it appears general manager Warren Rychel’s cupboard is almost bare.

Meanwhile, in the Eastern Conference, the Brampton Battalion, the hottest team in the league in October and November, picked up overage defenceman Josh Day and right winger Andrew Merrett from Niagara. Belleville, the other Eastern Conference team with what would seem like faint hope for a championship, picked up forward Luke Pither from Guelph for a second-round pick in next year’s OHL draft. Pither, arriving not long before Wednesday’s game against Oshawa, scored three goals and picked up two assists and then presumably introduced himself to his new teammates.

Each contender, with the exception of London, has made a major move.

Wednesday night the London beat Erie 6-2 for their 19th win in the past 22 games. It’s hard to imagine that the Hunter bothers, London’s owners, don’t think their chances to land the Memorial Cup wouldn’t get a whole lot better with Tavares in the lineup.

And it’s hard to imagine that Tavares wouldn’t welcome — at long last — a change of scenery.

One of the biggest stories at the world juniors was Angelo Esposito taking Tavares’ place in the lineup and scoring a couple of big goals in the medal round after being cut from the team in each of the past three years.

In three full seasons in the OHL, Tavares hasn’t had the real shot at a championship that all great players seem to have at some point. In Oshawa before him, Bobby Orr made it to the Memorial Cup final and Eric Lindros played on a Cup winner.

Sidney Crosby made it to the championship game with Rimouski in 2005 and even Esposito has a Memorial Cup championship on his resume from his rookie season in Quebec.

Wayne Gretzky played in only two OHL playoff rounds, but then again, he only stuck around for one season in Sault Ste. Marie, compared with the four seasons that Tavares has toiled in Oshawa.

It would be good for Canadian junior hockey if its brightest star had a chance to go out a winner. It would be good for Tavares too. He has dreaded the trade talk, but in the wake of the world junior tournament he would probably welcome the chance to win again.

If that means moving on, then so be it.

"Winning is what you play for," Tavares said Wednesday night. "I don’t know what it would be like to go to the Mem Cup. The battle is longer and tougher. It would be grueling to go through four rounds just to get there. It’s a different type of pressure than at the world juniors — at last year’s tournament, one bad period almost cost us the championships. For a Mem Cup you have to be there for every game, week after week.

"What I learned with this year’s world junior team is to be myself, stay down to earth and enjoy the game. You have to live in the moment and play in the moment ... that you do your best when you have fun."

There was no talk about other teams Wednesday night, not while Tavares was still property of the Generals. It wouldn’t be fair to the team that he has played for these past three-and-a-half seasons, though probably never again.

Tavares later rode the bus back to Oshawa with his teammates a final time.

The game against Belleville didn't look like a good time for Tavares, but the games are likely going to start becoming more fun for him by the weekend.