3 hilarious trade stories involving Canucks players

2. Brandon Prust

In the 2015 offseason, Brandon Prust was on a vacation in Rome with his fiancé at the time. On July 1, he saw the headline that the Canucks had traded Zack Kassian to the Montreal Canadiens, but Prust didn’t look at who Montreal was sending the other way.

He told his fiancé about the trade and explained how Kassian’s playing style was very similar to his and adding a player like that will be beneficial to the team. A few minutes later, he received a call from general manager Marc Bergevin.

Turns out, Bergevin had traded Prust to Vancouver to the shock of both him and many of his teammates.

“I had no clue,” Prust explained after the trade, per the Montreal Gazette. “I know on July 1 there’s a lot of action and I’m going into the last year of my contract. But after the playoffs I had (a postseason career-high goal and three assists in 12 games, and some industrial-strength work), I didn’t think there was any way they’d trade me.”

Nothing like a nice trade to complete your beautiful vacation in Rome, right?

3. Erik Gudbranson

In May of 2016, Erik Gudbranson was having the adventure of a lifetime with his teammate and friend, Shawn Matthias. They travelled all over Africa, went on a safari, and did a riverboat cruise in Botswana.

The cruise didn’t have cellphone service, so no one could reach him to tell him that the Florida Panthers had traded him to Vancouver.

He ended up finding out about the trade three days after the deal was done over lunch with Matthias in Zimbabwe.

“It was pretty funny,” Gudbranson said, per Sportsnet. “I went to sit down at the table, and he was dying laughing: ‘Dude, you just got traded.’ I said, ‘C’mon, no chance.’ He said, ‘Yep. You’re gonna be a Canuck now.'”

Luckily for Gudbranson, his girlfriend took care of everything with the agent and played a big part in helping him get set up in Vancouver. That was the first time he had ever been traded, and he found out in quite aunique way.