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Indeed, last year TradeCentre had a peak audience of almost half a million viewers, and an average of more than 200,000, which dwarfs what TSN would have on a regular weekday.

“As we all try to figure out why we do this and why we watch it, it may be the single greatest testament to the passion for hockey in this country is that people watch knowing that nothing might happen,” Duthie says. “And we almost take it as an excuse just to get a bunch of hockey people to talk hockey for 10 hours. And if the trades happen that’s great, and if not, we can just sit around and talk hockey. Hey, once a year, why not?”

This is why he approaches it with gallows humour now. When Ray Ferarro said a couple of years ago that “tinkering” was the word of the day, Duthie immediately shot back that tinkering “was not a word you will hear in our promos.” (Although TinkerCentre 2016 does have a nice ring to it.)

“Somewhere along the way I realized we weren’t fooling anyone,” Duthie says. “We say up front that nothing might happen. It’s a ludicrous premise, really, to go on the air for whatever it is, 10 hours … it’s ludicrous to talk about deals for a seventh defencman for a fourth-round pick for that long, but for whatever reason it’s become this Canadian tradition where people are going to watch anyway.”

He says he used to dread when trades were made in the days leading up to the deadline, but no longer.

“And I was much more at peace with myself when I just accepted the fact that everybody could be gone in any year, and we’d just have to make do for 10 hours, and that made my life a lot easier than worrying about it,” Duthie says.