Making the second hounding trip of the weekend (I made a solo trip Friday morning) for the Boston Bruins, the game time session, as well as Boston's 4-1 loss to Tampa Bay, was one of the busiest hockey days I can remember.
Am I complaining? Nope. Just stating a fact. In fact, I'm probably bragging a little:
Besides Colin filling nearly two team sheets, we were also able to get Phil Kessel and Marc Savard to sign these pucks. It didn't stop there, either. Goalie Tim Thomas and Tuukka Rask signed our Bruins team goalie helmet. Even better, Glen Murray, Marco Sturm and Kessel signed the FleetCenter entrance sign, too.
Among those signing cards were, from left, Andrew Alberts, Brandon Bochenski, Savard and Aaron Ward.Though we missed getting Bruins legend Cam Neely (a major miss, I know), we certainly won't complain about adding 72 autographs, on everything from sticks, a goalie mask, pucks, my so-called cheap skate cards and a calendar.
3 comments:
Wow nice job with the Bruins, I can only wish the Rangers signed like that. Saturday the Islanders were playing the Thrasher, one of two teams that still stay at the soon-to-be demolished hotel next door to the arena. This meant that a substantial number of players would walk. I did pretty well before and after the morning skates, adding 64 items signed by 23 different players between the two teams, but wasn't able to get many big names (exceptions being Marian Hossa on an 8x10, and Bill Guerin on a card,) because most of the bigger names on the Thrashers, including Bryan Little, Bobby Holik, and Ilya Kovalchuk, took a bus from the hotel to the arena, which pulled into the underground tunnel. A few of the Islanders are now having their cars moved from the main parking lot to the underground tunnel during morning skate so they don't have to sign autographs after the skate. I guess I can't complain about beating my previous single day hounding record by more than 50% (42-Milwaukee Brewers,) but I find it disheartening that so many players are going to such great lengths to avoid us. The other team that stays at that hotel is the Capitals, and I bet that Backstrom and Ovechkin will take the bus to avoid the 20 or so hounds between the hotel and arena, so I'll adjust my strategy accordingly. Good luck this week with the Islanders.
It is frustrating, isn't it? I believe a lot of it has to do with online auctions, such as eBay, and those that feed the product into the system.
Once players learned that people can make money from them, even if any profit can be counted in change, I really don't blame them for viewing any adult as a dealer.
From what I hear about Backstrom, here in the states and abroad, he's doesn't sign all that often.
How big was the crowd for Atlanta? we see them so often down here, that the crowd has thinned out with each visit.
I was surprised, too, that there were only seven of us hounding the Bruins at game time. I understand there were more people for the morning skate, but still I expected more people out there.
As always, Chuck, thanks for stopping by and sharing.
There were about 10-15 people waiting for the Thrashers and about 10 more just waiting for the Islanders.
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