Kitty litter

Florida's mastery over Tampa Bay has simply hammered the Lightning down the stretch. Tonight's 7-2 smoking by the Panthers, the third since March 3rd, kept the Bolts from winning their third division championship in four seasons.

Atlanta, the Lightning's likely playoff opponent, takes the Southeast.

Though I'd like to see the Sabres in the first round, I wouldn't mind if the Lightning first had to beat the Thrashers. It would give me a couple trips to snag a few more pucks.

We'll see what happens, won't we?

Hounding 2006: Year in Review

Considering all that has happened in the past year, 2006 turned out, from a hounding point of view, to be a pretty decent year. Despite making a move to the Tampa Bay area from New England, brought about by accepting a job at Florida’s best newspaper, my hockey-hounding hobby continued.

Looking back, here are some of the highlights:

~ For the calendar year, another 241 autographed pucks were added to the collection. As of today, the total stands at 1,143.

~ As of today, Puckhound's five blogs have received more than 7,800 page views since Aug. 15.

~ Ottawa’s Wade Redden signed the 1,072nd puck of the collection, equaling the total number of points scored (regular season and playoffs) by Wayne Gretzky in his professional (World Hockey Association and National Hockey League) career.

~ Anaheim’s Teemu Selanne signed four pucks in a day during one of the best hounding days of the year. Colin even scored his first puck.

~ Learning there are other things to do in Florida than add to a hockey autograph collection.

~ Colin, who developed an interest in collecting autographs, renewed acquaintances with his buddies, Boston’s Patrice Bergeron and Carolina’s Cam Ward.

~ Moving to Florida opened up better access to such Southeast Division teams as the Atlanta Thrashers, Carolina Hurricanes and Washington Capitals, and such stars as Rod Brind’Amour, Ilya Kovalchuk and Alexander Ovechkin. I suppose, too, I shouldn’t forget about our new hometown team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, and its Big Three -– Vinny Lecavalier, Brad Richards and Marty St. Louis.

~ Being the only three people to find the Dallas Stars before a preseason game and getting Mike Modano to sign a few items.

~ While making our way to Florida, we arrived in Hershey, Pa., in time to watch a very thrilling and exhausting Game 7 between the Portland Pirates and Hershey Bears.

~ Making it home for Colin’s birthday and finding time to take in an American Hockey League playoff game in one of our favorite cities -– Portland, Maine.

~ Knowing that Colin got a close-up look at NHL warmups when he served as a "bench assistant" during a Bruins game.

~ Getting Atlanta's Marian Hossa to sign the 1,000th puck of the collection.

~ The New York Islanders’ Brendan Witt, then playing for the Washington Capitals, signed our first puck in Florida.

~ Adding autographed pucks from Boston's Patrice Bergeron, Ray Bourque and Cam Neely to the collection all on the same day.

~ Having one of my hockey heroes, Patrick Roy, sign a goalie stick for Colin.

Goalie talk

For those of you lucky enough to have made my son’s acquaintance, you’ve quickly found out that, almost to a fault, he’s a precocious little guy. Simply put, he has no problem endearing himself to anyone, especially hockey players.

As I wrote recently, he’s been telling me lately, with increasing frequency, that he wants to be a goalie. On Saturday, before the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 5-3 victory over Southeast Division rival Atlanta, Colin made friends with Thrashers goalie Johan Hedberg.

Now, most hounds know that Hedberg is a pretty nice person. He’ll sign anything and everything. Colin’s team sheet (which also includes autographs from Ilya Kovalchuk and Kari Lehtonen), shown above, was no different. Hedberg signed, at the bottom, near the middle.
What made the autograph remarkable, in my opinion, was the exchange when he got it:

Colin: Do you play goalie?

Hedberg: Yes, I do

Colin: I want to be a goalie.

Hedberg: You do?

Colin: Yeah. I have all the equipment.

Hedberg: You do?

Colin: Yeah, it’s my daddy’s. It doesn’t fit me yet.

Hedberg (looking over and sizing me up): Well, buddy, you’ll have some catching up to do.

Logging a hat trick

Any time a team comes to town, any hound worth his or her salt will have two to three players at the top of their wish list.

For Atlanta, it should be a no-brainer – top scorers Marian Hossa and Ilya Kovalchuk and promising goalie Kari Lehtonen.

The pucks shown above? All I have are two words: Mission accomplished.

As a whole, though, the Thrashers are a decent signing team. Nearly everyone, save for Andy Sutton and Niclas Havelid, stopped to sign. Sutton and Havelid said they’d sign once they put their stuff on the bus, but never came back out.

Players who signed four cards each were Garnet Exelby, Johan Hedberg, Lehtonen (whose last name rhymes with, as I shouted during the game, "Lets Them In") and Steve Rucchin. Also signing multiples were Eric Boulton, Niko Kapanen, Jon Sim, Jim Slater and Vitali Vishnevsky.

Bobby Holik, Hossa, Kovalchuk, Slava Kozlov and Scott Mellanby were strictly one-per signers. Believe it or not, so was Brad Larsen.

This is going in a frame

A couple years ago, before the NHL lockout put Pacific hockey cards out of business, the company produced a line called Pacific Exhibit.

One of the premiums of the set, released during the 2003-04 season, was a chase parallel of oversized cards. Nothing real fancy, just enlarged versions of the base set -- stars and commons included.

Over the past few years, I’ve kept them in my working stock. My recent fascination with pucks, though, allowed them to gather some dust. But now, as I become more selective with my pucks, I recognize an opportunity to get these bigger cards signed.

Atlanta’s Ilya Kovalchuk, I’m wicked proud to say, signed my first card. And after a trip to Target later today, that card will end up in a frame on top of Colin’s dresser.

Pretty cool, if you ask me.

You gotta be kidding me

It’s a given, at least with most teams, that the third- and fourth-line players are pretty decent signers. They understand their role within the team and, for the most part, with the fans.

Atlanta’s Brad Larsen, however, must have thrown away that memo.

Larsen, a fourth–line center for the otherwise cordial Thrashers, signed just one item each for about a dozen hounds outside the team’s Tampa hotel on Saturday ‘s drop-dead gorgeous afternoon before the game.

I nearly laughed out loud in his face when he invoked his "one-per" rule.

Granted, I’m happy to get anything autographed, but after 10 years of hounding, I’d thought I’d seen just about everything. Larsen, who has scored a grand total of 36 points in 179 NHL contests, provided a new lesson.

Worth the wait

One of the last trips I made to Tampa this past season was to hound the Atlanta Thrashers. It proved to be a memorable trip, too, as Marian Hossa signed the 1,000th puck of the collection.

My elation, though, was a bit tempered by the fact that Atlanta’s Ilya Kovalchuk didn’t stop to sign. Not for me nor anyone else that spring afternoon. Not even children. In fact, he was kinda rude about it.

I did take solace in knowing that I’d have plenty more chances, though, because the Tampa Bay Lightning and Atlanta play within the Eastern Conference’s Southeast Division.

That patience was rewarded this morning, as both Hossa and Kovalchuk signed pucks (above, left to right) for me. Also signing pucks were goalie Johan Hedberg (Thrashers), center Bobby Holik (Hartford Whalers) and defenseman Vitaly Vishnevski, who signed a pair (Thrashers and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim).

I didn’t even grumble when I learned that I missed Kari Lehtonen. Then again, getting him to sign three pucks in one day during the 2005 AHL All-Star Classic has left me needing nothing but cards. I mean, it's not like I'm selling them or anything.

All told, I got 20 autographs, including four cards from Niko Kapanen.