Sunday morning homily XXV

Just how quickly time flies by struck me hard yesterday as we hounded the Carolina Hurricanes. It seems like only a couple weeks ago that the Lightning were at training camp and a full season of hounding awaited.

I've been told that time does, indeed, pass in an instant with each year, as we're able to place it in context with the accumulation of years in our lives. If I didn't subscribe to that theory last September, any doubts were erased by March.

I know I've taken extended breaks from hounding this season, keeping a promise I made to myself before the season. I wanted to have fun this year, rather than repeat the frustrations that dotted the tail end of the 2006-07 season. I believe I kept that commitment.

I'll save an in-depth look at the 2007-08 season for another day, but I certainly can't complain about this season's efforts. Thanks to Boston's Tim Thomas, the puck collection hit 1,500. Future Hall of Famer Joey Sakic signed four pucks. Scoring 50 autographs in a single session was pretty cool, too.

That's not to say, though, that there wasn't some frustration. Health issues kept me away from two Western Conference teams, Vancouver and Minnesota, leaving me with a stockpile of those pucks. It's one thing to miss a divisional foe, but to pass on opportunities at such players as Marian Gaborik, Roberto Luongo and Markus Naslund was disappointing.

Looking at the big picture, however, I suppose it's easy to understand how the past seven months went by like seven weeks. Time flies when you're having fun.

On spring break

In my first tour of duty in Florida, back in 1979, one of my favorite times of the year was when northern colleges cut loose their students for two weeks of intoxicating fun in the sun of southern climates.

Living near Clearwater Beach back then, it was easy to get a front-row seat to the festivities. As I joined buddies parked along Mandalay Avenue, our cover (which seldom worked, by the way) was that we were students at either Florida or Syracuse. Our tans, however, gave us away.

Twenty-plus years later, I'm looking forward to this spring break. Colin has a week off from school and, through the good graces of my boss and a colleague, we're going to spend it together.

Now, I promise to steer clear of Clearwater Beach over the next week. Instead, we'll be skating, camping out and watching Horton Hears A Who! And, yes, we'll hound the Thrashers and Lightning tomorrow.

5 Big Sigs

In what will be this season's final installment of this weekly feature, we're hoping to add these to the collection:

~ Atlanta goalie Kari Lehtonen on the Thrashers team helmet;
~ Tampa Bay's Vinny Lecavalier on a 2008 NHL All Star Game puck;
~ Tampa Bay's Junior Lessard, winner of the 2004 Hobey Baker Award, on a Lightning puck;
~ Tampa Bay rookie defenseman Matt Smaby on a University of North Dakota puck; and
~ New Lightning goalie Mike Smith on Tampa Bay and Dallas pucks.