IF IT weren't for Fremantle, perhaps Hawthorn wouldn't be playing in Saturday's Grand Final.
The Hawks might not have their 2008 premiership cup either.
Among the pivotal moments that have sown the seeds for the era that could yield Hawthorn a second flag in six years on Saturday, the club's 2001 trade deal with the Dockers stands out.
It was fraught with emotion and opposed by many Hawk supporters at the time.
Driven by the need to ease salary cap pressure, Hawthorn sent quality young key-position players Trent Croad and Luke McPharlin to the Dockers.
Coming off a narrow preliminary final loss, the Hawks didn't make another finals appearance for six years.
It was Croad who was the big-ticket item in the deal at the time but All Australian defender McPharlin who has become a key member of the first Fremantle side to reach a Grand Final.
And it's the draft picks Hawthorn netted as a result that provided two cornerstones of their list.
The Hawks received picks one, 20 and 36, using the first and last of those to recruit Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell.
The captain and his immediate predecessor have both been central to the Hawks' status as an AFL power.
Between them, they've won six of Hawthorn's past eight best and fairest awards, and Hodge won the Norm Smith Medal in the 2008 grand final upset of Geelong.
The veteran pair is still showing the way.
Mitchell's tireless ball-winning efforts against Geelong last Friday night did more than anything else to drive the Hawks into another decider.
A fortnight earlier, Hodge was best afield in the qualifying final defeat of the Sydney Swans.
The two are the Hawks at shortest odds to win the Norm Smith Medal on Saturday.
Rewind 12 years, and it was Fremantle who was touted as the big winner in the 2001 trade period.
Along with Croad and McPharlin, they picked up ruck-forward Troy Simmonds and goalsneak Jeff Farmer from Melbourne.
Croad, who described himself at the time as "bitterly disappointed" at having to leave the Hawks and whose move was railied against by supporters, was traded back just two years later.
His last match was Hawthorn's 2008 flag.
McPharlin, who had played just 12 games with the Hawks and was dealing with osteitis pubis, didn't make his Dockers debut until mid-2002.
He has now played 212 games with Fremantle and as he prepares for an important task on Saturday helping to curb the star-packed Hawk attack, his Hawthorn past is a dim, distant memory.
"I sometimes forget they're my former side," McPharlin admitted.
"It's been such a long time since I've been at Fremantle now.
"The guys that I started out with, no-one's there anymore."
