Double-dipping

When opportunity presents itself, and conditions allow, it's usually best to take advantage of the situation. Last Friday, with Toronto in town to meet the Lightning, was just one of those instances.

It's not that I really wanted to hound the Maple Leafs. Sure, they have a few decent players -- Mats Sundin and Tomas Kaberle come to mind. No, what I was interested in doing was hounding the hometown Bolts.

After making a deadline day splash by shipping Brad Richards off to Dallas, the Lightning had a few new names on the roster. These new faces created an opportunity to add to the collection. Hence, the trip over to Tampa. The Leafs, I suppose, were a bonus.

Not only did I add another 20 autographs to the collection, giving me a total of 38 for the trip, but some of the Lightning's recent additions -- Jeff Halpern, Jussi Jokinen (left, above) and Karri Ramo (right, above) -- put pen to pucks for me. Unfortunately, the only newcomer I missed was goalie Mike Smith.

I won't complain, either, that the Lightning's latest version of the Big Three all stopped to sign.

So did a few others, such as Nick Tarnasky and Michel Ouellet, who signed the cards above, as well as Paul Ranger, Andre Roy and Doug Janik.