Sunday morning homily IX

Among hobbies, collecting autographs, I'm afraid, is probably nestled in the bottom 10 percent. But you know what, I don't really care. I've never been one to be trendy.

Granted, photography, architecture and traveling (spending time with one's family and friends shouldn't be viewed as a hobby, thank you) are my other hobbies. But there's something about interacting with other people, the athletes, fellow hounds and, um, dealers (it is Sunday morning, mind you), that makes hounding one of my favorite pastimes.

And it sure beats the hell out of mowing the lawn (not exactly a hobby, I know, but a neighbor has started, before 8:30 a.m., his landscaping chores.).

Going forward, and especially as I work on another project that will lead to another blog, I'll add more hounding pictures, like the one above of Tampa Bay goalie Marc Denis signing a photo for a fan (there's a rumor that Brad Richards once threatened to call the cops when this fan appeared at his front door), to Hound Central 2.0.

So, how did he do?
Because I was lucky enough to be at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo yesterday afternoon, even getting within three feet of a giraffe and, unfortunately, downwind of some fresh elephant dung, I missed Brett Hull's debut on NHL on NBC.

It's no easy leap of the imagination to realize that I'm one of those bitter Buffalo Sabres fans who believes that the blowhard cheated back in 1999. So, I'm hoping that Hull, who I am loathe to admit is just as good with his one-liners as he was with his one-timers, repeatedly stuck his feet in his mile-wide piehole.

If he did, please pass it along. I promise to scour the Internet looking for reviews and share them with the legion of us who know his daddy was 10 times better. If he didn't screw up, I'd rather not know.

Am I the only one . . .
who noticed that the Tampa Bay Lightning did away with the Hockey Bay logo at center ice at the St. Pete Times Forum?