No. 500 for Bondra

Not only am I happy to see hound-friendly Petr Bondra back in the NHL, but I’m also wicked psyched that he scored the 500th goal of his career late last week. With the goal, which came in Chicago’s 3-2 victory over Toronto on Friday, he became the 37th player to reach 500 goals in his career.

For Bondra, in his 16th NHL season, it was his second goal in six games after he signed, as a free agent, with the Blackhawks on Dec. 10. Bondra played for Atlanta this past season, signing the puck shown above April 11th.

Bondra, then playing for Washington, was one of the first big-name stars to sign an autograph for more than 10 years ago.

With the Carolina Hurricanes playing their home games in Greensboro, visiting NHL teams, such as the Capitals, had very few choices for hotels (three, to be exact), so it was pretty easy to find them. And while I was happy to score autographs from Steve Konowalchuk, Andrei Nikolishin and Brendan Witt, it was Bondra’s nearly letter-perfect autograph on a card that made the day.