Watch Belleville Bulls, Kingston Frontenacs players and fans salute end of OHL rivalry (VIDEO)

The relocation of the Belleville Bulls last week to Hamilton fomented great anger, sadness and shock.

In hindsight, the handwriting was on the walls for years; the local municipal government had higher priorities than replacing Yardmen Arena, and the Bulls' lease was up. There was also the chain reaction of moves in the AHL that left Hamilton Bulldogs owner Michael Andlauer in need of a team. Yet the manner which it became publicly known, with only two weeks left in the Ontario Hockey League season, came off as callous and cold. In the case of the OHL's two previous transfers, Plymouth-to-Flint earlier this season and Brampton-to-North Bay in 2012-13, there was enough lead time to digest the news.

Belleville's first game since the news, fittingly, was their last game of the season against the archrival Kingston Frontenacs. There was a great moment after the first stoppage of play in the second period. The Frontenacs put a "Goodbye Old Rivals" message on the scoreboard of the K-Rock Centre. The officials "backed off on the faceoff in the Kingston end and allowed the standing ovation to go on" as the crowd of 5,176 applaued and players on each teams banged their sticks on the boards.

Like TV Cogeco Kingston play-by-play announcer David Murphy — who's a city councillor in Cornwall, Ont., another city that lost its team — said, "You got a family member that's moving away... and they're not coming back."

It is also tough to resist spinning that moment as a kind of symbolic protest against the optics of the move. The business side of it is understandable. The city of Belleville had "34 years to do something" about the arena and opted, not incorrectly, to put its resources toward other priorities that benefit more people than those who enjoy having major junior hockey. It is hard to be competitive without a modern arena since since major junior hockey, as The Hockey News' Ryan Kennedy put it, is also becoming "more of a professional show with each passing year" (even as the Canadian Hockey League maintains its players are amateur athletes).

Through a rational lens, this day was coming for a while. People don't get into sports, though, to be rational. They get into it for many reasons, including a kinship with the people involved in the games. In this case, that includes a Bulls coaching staff trying to prepare their teenage and young adult players for the playoffs with "no idea" about their employment status in Hamilton beyond, as the assistant coach Jake Grimes told the Kingston Whig-Standard, "[being] told to finish the season as best you can."

The only constant is change, yet it still affects people. So it was great to see that outpouring of emotion.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.