Finishing strong

Just because the Tampa Bay Lightning suffered through an extremely disappointing season. Hound Central 3.0 wasn't about to let that get in the way of the final hounding session of the 2007-08 NHL season.

No, sir. Not us. Not when the team provides a red-carpet (really!) opportunity to snag some autographs from the hometown heroes. And though fans had to endure a muggy reminder Monday that summer's right around the corner, it proved to be a fine way to cap another season of hounding.

As you can see, Colin did quite well with another of his hand-drawn team sheets. Notable sweat-soaked signers included Vinny Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis, Dan Boyle and Jeff Halpern.

Even Puckhound got into the act, getting Boyle, Filip Kuba, Mike Lundin and Jason Ward, among others, to sign these cards . . .

. . . and Halpern and Junior Lessard, winner of the 2004 Hobey Baker Award, as well as new goalie Mike Smith, to sign these pucks.

By day's end, Hound Central 3.0 added another 33 autographs from the Lighting to the collection. If you add the 34 autographs we scored from the Atlanta Thrashers earlier in the day, the last trip of the 2007-08 produced a total of 67 autographs.

Not bad, if you ask me.

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.

It's hard to say "no"

I'm sorry if I sound like an overly proud daddy, but I get the biggest kick out of watching Colin get his team sheets signed.

He's certainly not afraid to ask and really doesn't care if the player is a superstar or a kid having his first cup of NHL coffee. Because of that, as well as his youthful status, he has a fairly high success rate in getting players fill out his sheets.

In about an hour Tuesday, before Colorado shut out Tampa Bay, Colin was able to get 23 players and coaches to sign.

Big-name players honoring Colin's requests included Joe Sakic, Milan Hejduk, Paul Stastny, Marek Svatos and Wojtek Wolski. In quality and quantity, that's not a bad haul.

Three and out

Once a team comes to town for the third time in a season, you really ought to be tying up the loose ends of your hounding efforts. In a sense, that's what we did Saturday with the Carolina Hurricanes.

Using mostly items downloaded from the team's Web site, something that has become somewhat of a preoccupation of mine, we focused on team items, adding another 27 autographs to the collection. And, as usual, he scored the most using team sheets, snagging 16 autographs from Rod Brind'Amour, Cam Ward, Ray Whitney and long-time toughie Tom Barrasso, the 'Canes new goalie coach.

Apparently, I was simply along for the ride, getting only one puck, this Team USA from Erik Cole. To my credit, I did get a couple cards each from John Grahame and Ladd.

For the second trip in a row, we missed out on Eric Staal. We saw him take his bags to the bus, but then he walked back into the hotel. It seems he's become fond of taking a back way out of the hotel. It's too bad, too, as they were only six of us waiting at game time.

Suffice it to say, barring any major trade that brings a big name to Tobacco Road, we're done with the Hurricanes for the year.

Kid's play

When it comes to Colin getting autographs, nothing works better than these homemade team sheets. They're easy for everyone involved. The fact that they're unique, even down to the date, only enhances collectibility.

Colin put these to good use Saturday afternoon, getting 18 players, coaches and team staff to sign the sheets.

Players who signed the top sheet include Chris Campoli, Bruno Gervais, Bill Guerin, Ted Nolan and Brendan Witt.

General manager Garth Snow and Miroslav Satan were among those who signed the bottom sheet.

In fact, about the only issue I have with these sheets is whether to use one of two. I like the idea of two, not just because I made two, but because they are so simple to use.

I need to remember, though, to limit the first sheet to say 10-11 autographs, rather than the 14. Adding another three to four to the second sheet would help fill it out.

Solid effort, I'd say

If I were to give out the No 1 star for Saturday's pre-game hounding of the Boston Bruins, I'd certainly play favoritism, as it is a father's right, and award it to Colin.

Understanding full well that his buddy Patrice Bergeron was headed home to Quebec to recover from his serious concussion, Colin shrugged off any disappointment he may have had with each and every Bruin he met.

All told, Colin had 21 players, announcers or team officials sign his Bruins team sheets.

Among those who stopped to sign were:

Top sheet: Claude Julien, Marc Savard, Mark Stuart and Aaron Ward.

Bottom sheet: Andrew Alberts, Phil Kessel, Glen Murray and Marco Sturm.

Tricks of the Trade: Recognizing players

Now that you know how to find NHL teams in your city, it's time to learn how to identify the players. While some dealers and hounds, quite often the laziest individuals I've ever met, don't feel this is necessary, I believe it's an obligation to know who you're hounding.

For the most part, if you're willing to make an effort, that effort will be rewarded. Rather than stumbling around, asking "Who's that?" to anyone who'll listen, knowing their identities can help you get more autographs.

Besides, the research is easy:

~ Simply put, watch games on television, be it on Versus, NHL Centre Ice or whatever, that feature the teams coming to town. Forget the jerseys and numbers, though. Concentrate on the players' faces.

~ If you have access to a computer, visit a team's Web site and check out the roster. Most link to a player's bio where you'll find a crisp, clean photograph to download and study.

~ If you're handy with design programs (Believe it or not, I use Microsoft Word for mine), you can create individual player cards, or cheaps skates, like the ones we'll use this weekend for the Bruins, that also double as identification tools.

~ You'll also see that I used the same sheet to create a cheat-sheet strip of headshots for the players I might not immediately recognize. These serve as a handy field guide.

~ If you're simply too lazy to put forth this type of effort (and, if you are, you really should stay home), you can always work a team item.

Many of Tampa's know-nothing dealers, as well as a handful of collectors, use jerseys, sticks, helmets, arena photos or painted canvases for their goods.

Often, when Colin is hounding with me, I'll create a team sheet, like the one shown above for Saturday's visit to the Bruins, for him.

All things considered

Going into this season, one of my goals was to have more fun. I remembered that hockey hounding was a hobby, not a business, and success can be defined many ways.

When nearly 40 people -- from collectors to dealers to fans (the biggest crowd of the season) -- showed up for the New York Rangers on Wednesday morning, I knew it could have been a frustrating morning. Instead, with Colin in tow thanks to a week off for Thanksgiving, it turned out to be a pretty fun morning.

All told, Colin and I came home after the Blueshirts' morning skate with another 20 autographs, including nine on his team sheet.

Big names, if you want to call them that, to sign Colin's team sheet (made with Microsoft's Word program) were Peter Prucha, Michal Rozsival, Jim Schoenfeld and Fedor Tyutin.

Among other players who signed for us that morning, the cards shown above are, from left, Marek Malik, Prucha and Rozsival. Others signing cards were Marcel Hossa and Paul Mara.

Granted, we missed out on the big names -- Jaromir Jagr, Henrik Lundqvist and Brendan Shanahan. But it certainly wasn't for the lack of effort. In fact, for about five seconds, Colin and I had Jagr all to ourselves.

With a clutch of people surrounding Lundqvist, we peeled off when I spied Jagr trying to sneak out of the hotel. I asked whether he'd sign Colin's team sheet, but he motioned to his coffee. When I offered to hold the uncapped cup of Joe, I sensed Jagr was willing to sign.

Unfortunately, the crowd joined the hunt and began to engulf Jagr. Knowing that our moment had passed, we stepped away from the crush of people. From what I heard, too, someone bumped into Jagr, spilling that cup of coffee on him. After that, it's my guess he was done signing for the day.

Would it have been sweet to snag autographs from Jagr, Lundqvist and Shanny? Certainly. But, more importantly, it was more about spending some time with my son, doing something that we enjoy. I'll take that over three hastily written scribbles any day.

As for the only puck I got that day, keeping alive a three-season-long streak, it belonged to New York's Daniel Girardi, and not Jagr. More than one person, though, commented that Girardi's signature looks like Jagr's scribble from a few years ago.

We didn't need tickets

Even though we didn't have tickets for Saturday's game between the Atlanta and Tampa Bay, it didn't stop us from making the trip to Tampa to hound the Thrashers. And, after adding another 54 autographs to the collection, it looks like it was a pretty smart call.

And, yes, it was a family affair. Colin had his favorite -- team sheets (at left) -- and got 17 players, including Johan Hedberg, Marian Hossa and Slava Kozlov, to sign for him. Lisa was on her game, too, getting 28 cards signed, including four each from Pascal Dupuis, Johan Hedberg, Mark Popovic, Jim Slater, Todd White and Alexei Zhitnik.

Me? Well, I just cherry-picked, identifying players while focusing on pucks (I got seven out of eight, missing only Garnet Exelby), a University of New Hampshire jersey and the Young Guns stick.

Unfortunately, but somewhat expected, Ilya Kovalchuk and Bobby Holik played hard to get. Thankfully, though, Atlanta will be back in town two more times. Still, you won't hear any complaints from us.

Pucks, shown above, are Johan Hedberg, Pittsburgh Penguins; Bryan Little, Atlanta Thrashers; and Alexei Zhitnik, Atlanta Thrashers.

Cards, shown below, are, from left, Slava Kozlov, Johan Hedberg, Jim Slater and Alexei Zhitnik.

Family day at camp

In what's becoming something of a family tradition, we all made the trip over to the Tampa Bay Lightning's training camp in Brandon earlier today. Like most other camps, it's open to the public and the players are willing to sign.

For Lisa, it's an opportunity to check out the, how shall I say this, the Lightning's new faces. For Colin, it's a chance to hook up with some friends from Bradenton. For me, it's a chance to step back and watch Lisa and Colin interact with the players.

As you can see, Colin did pretty good, getting 12 players, including Vinny Lecavalier, on one of his team sheets. Please note, too, the new Lightning logo. Most fans I've spoken with seem to like it, saying anything was better than the old one. My jury's still out. Despite my indecision, though, it didn't keep me from getting the pucks above signed by goalie Johan Holmqvist, left, and defenseman Paul Ranger.

Either way, about the only thing we'd change would be the near 100-degree temperatures and the glaring sun. Back when we lived in New England, I used to kibbutz, especially on brutally cold January days, about how much fun it would be to collect autographs down here in Tampa. Now that we're down here, I certainly wouldn't have minded one of those January breezes today.

Anyways, I digress. As expected, it being Sunday and all, the autograph pen at the Ice Sports Forum was crowded. At one time, before a couple dealers decided to pack it in, the crowd flirted with 50 people.

And while some players drove past, quite a few stopped and rewarded those of us who dealt with the heat and humidity.