Smiles, all around

Thanks to a balky printer that, for the time being, is reluctant to print magenta and cyan, I wasn't able to print out a team sheet for Colin to use Monday when we hounded, for the fourth time this season, the Atlanta Thrashers.

While I fretted about my lack of technological skills to solve this problem, Colin took some markers and solved the problem himself, showing his resourcefulness by creating his own hand-drawn team sheet.

As his ever-doting daddy, I was rather proud of his artistic talents and ambition. The Thrashers, including such big names as Ilya Kovalchuk, Kari Lehtonen and Mark Recchi, saw the beauty within, too. More than one of the 17 players to sign complimented Colin on his interpretation of the team's logo.

I'm sure, too, that after a season of signing the same pucks, pictures, cards and jerseys, it's a bit refreshing to see something different, especially an item drawn by a star-struck kid who couldn't care less whether a player was a fourth-line center or a seventh defenseman.

Inspired by Colin's efforts, I turned my attention away from cherry-picking Atlanta's big names and took a team approach, landing a few veterans and a rookie on pucks (including the 250th of the season) and adding to the diversity of the autographed card collection.

All in all, between Colin's team sheet and my assorted items, Atlanta's players added another 34 autographs to the collection on what, because Tampa Bay didn't make the NHL playoffs this season, was our final hockey-hounding adventure of the 2007-08 season.

Cards, shown above, from left: Tobias Enstrom, 2007-08 UD NHL Rookie Class; Eric Perrin, 200304 Cardset Finland; and Chris Thorburn, 200506 AHL Top Prospects.