This is more like it

Seeing that I had one of the more embarrassing mornings of my hounding career Tuesday, I wanted to come back with a strong effort as the Tampa Bay Lightning opened its 2008-09 training camp Wednesday at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa.

I believe after adding 41 autographs, including 15 cards and 14 pucks (including this Stars puck from Mike Smith), I can lift my sunburned head a little higher. Granted, I made two trips, bringing Colin along to the Lightning radio show Wednesday night at the team hotel.

Besides the pucks above (clockwise, from top left): Brandon Bochenski, Adam Hall, Ryan Malone and Andrej Meszaros, these were among the day's efforts:

~ Getting one of the Lightning's co-owners to do a favor;
~ Snagging three big names at the radio show; and
~ Getting Matt Smaby to re-sign four pucks.

Among the sweeter cards were the four shown below of the 2007-08 Norfolk Admirals team set: Blair Jones, Vladimir Mihalik, Andy Rogers and Radek Smolenak. Training camp is a great, and perhaps only, time to get prospects.