Tom "Bussey" Martin recalls strange trade
Tom Martin was one of those players who seemed to bounce between the National Hockey League and the American Hockey League on an annual basis throughout the 1980s. He was good enough to be in the NHL but his career stats were pretty much non-descript. He played in 92 games for Winnipeg, Minnesota and Hartford between 1984 and 1990, scored 12 goals and assisted on 11 others. Martin was also a tough guy who rang up 249 penalty minutes in his NHL days, but many others could make that claim as well. But Martin holds one distinction that no one in the NHL, and maybe the entire sports world, could claim about his playing days.
Martin, who was a fourth-round draft pick by the Winnipeg Jets in 1982, was traded for a bus -- a used bus. That puts Martin in the same category as one-time major-league pitcher Keith Comstock, who was traded for a box of used baseballs as a minor-leaguer, independent league baseball player John Odom, who in May 2008 was traded by the Calgary Vipers of the Golden Baseball League to the Laredo Broncos of the United League for 10 bats, and Fred Roberts, who was traded by the NBA's Utah Jazz to Boston in 1986 in exchange for two preseason games in which Boston would play Utah.
On January 19, 1983, the Western Hockey League's Seattle Breakers dealt Martin to Victoria for a used bus and future considerations. Martin never played for the Breakers and decided to give the University of Denver a try instead. The left wing had played for the Kelowna Buckaroos of the British Columbia Junior Hockey League in 1980-81 and 1981-82 and ended up on the Breakers' reserve list. Martin decided he wanted to play hockey and get a college education at the same time so it was unlikely he would ever perform for Seattle. Breakers management was looking for a deal to get something of value for an asset it would never use.
