Nice souvenirs

For the most part, our son, Colin, has a souvenir from every hockey game he attends long before the puck is dropped. Tonight's game against the Boston Bruins was no different.

Despite dealing with the aftereffects of a cold, Colin scored 11 autographs on his team sheet (at left) from such players as Zdeno Chara, Marc Savard and Hannu Toivonen. He also added two cards each from his Bruins buddy, Patrice Bergeron, and Tim Thomas.

Once inside the St. Pete Times Forum, though, the gifts kept coming. As he stood along the glass during warm-ups, wearing his autographed Bergeron jersey, two Bruins made sure he went home with ice-cold souvenirs. Andrew Ference and Phil Kessel each skated up to the glass, tapped it, pointed to Colin and tossed a puck over the glass.

Pretty cool, if you ask me, and it certainly was the highlight, even beyond the Bruins' 6-2 drubbing of the Tampa Bay Lightning, of the evening. And you can bet we'll have them sign those pucks when Boston's back in town.

The only bummer of the night was learning that Patrice wasn't going to play. Not only did he tell us before the game that he was going to play, but we also saw him during the warmups. Was Colin disappointed? A little. But he understands that he'll have plenty of time to see Patrice play again.