from Dave Stubbs of the Montreal Gazette,

There was no trace of Scott Gomez in the Canadiens' Brossard dressing room Sunday, in body or material reminder, even before most players had arrived for Day One of training camp.

Gomez's stall, beside that of old friend Brian Gionta, was efficiently emptied by equipment staff, all of his gear and personal effects bagged and hauled away by the player himself or placed in storage. His nameplate was gone, replaced by a generic blank.

Above his stall were the faces that have looked down from above him since he arrived in Montreal by trade on June 30, 2009: Hall of Famers Toe Blake, Émile Bouchard and Elmer Lach.

This is the way it is in professional hockey, on any club. If you're sent home, as Gomez was on Sunday, or traded or cut, your stall quickly bears no sign that you'd ever been a member of the team.

"As a teammate and as a friend, it's tough to see," Gionta said, speaking of Gomez's departure, following the Canadiens' first practice of this already extraordinary camp.

continued