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On May 10th 2022, Fort Mac traded Bill Brauneller and their package to acquire Taira Matsumoto & Darryl Curtis from West Bay. That was quite a big trade by any standards. Nothing has been the same for the two teams since. A few days later, West Bay, who was short of good catchers, went on to trade the Fort Mac package to Val d'Or Sharks in order to get Trent Christmas. As well as the Val d’Or trade, the original trade led to two more very significant trades for both teams that changed the momentum in the entire CBL:
- Fort Mac acquired Red Reccius & Landen Berganza from Blackwater (Now Niagara Falls)
- West Bay acquired Marcel Orren & Jonathan Molson from Calgary
At that time, Fort Mac was struggling to take the lead of their division while West Bay was unable to do better than a 4th position year after year. Today, Fort Mac is undisputed in their division with the outstanding performance of Reccius, Matsumoto and Curtis.
On West Bay's end, with Brauneller’s performances and the quite significant help from Christmas, Orren and Molson, things have become a whole lot better, especially with the confirmation that they’ll be part of the playoffs for the first time in the team's history.
But all this happened because both teams went on to complete trades with natural opponents of the other. By acquiring Reccius, Fort Mac created a big hole in Niagara's pitching staff, which helped West Bay to make some gains in Fishermen East rankings. At Calgary, Orren’s and Molson’s departures certainly didn't help them in their division title fight against Fort Mac.
So to me, that one trade changed everything for a quite few teams. Hopefully, that was not the last one as big trades like that help to keep the interest of the owners to the highest possible level.
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