Temporary quarters

Do you want to see, in terms of pucks, what four months of hounding looks like? Take a look at these pictures. It's not so much what's in the display cases, but what's sitting atop -- the 130-plus pucks since Dec. 31.

As a result, I'll be spending time in the weeks ahead archiving and cataloging these efforts. I'll rotate a couple into the displays that are temporarily showcasing items.

As for the cases, the top photo is home to Hall of Famers, the Lightning and, as you can see, goalies. I'll trade the Bruins mask, signed by Hannu Toivonen, for the Martin Brodeur gloves. I'd like to frame and display the jerseys, but the Florida sun is so brutal they'd fade in a couple years.

The case above holds mostly top-shelf items. Pucks from Sidney Crosby, Jason Spezza and Mike Modano sit atop jerseys signed by Wayne Gretzky, Luc Robitaille and Modano. The Patrice Bergeron collection fills nearly half of the Bruins display.

In both cases, think of these as the "before" pictures. Once I've chronicled the pucks and updated the cases, I'll post the "after" pictures.

Looking ahead, when we finally find a house to our liking (as well as our checking account), we'll be able to put more on display. I'd like to build a wall of old locker stalls as the means to display jerseys, sticks and select groupings of pucks. A giant block of pucks, using the rest of the collection, would fill shelves on another wall.