Well worth the effort

To be honest, I had to be talked into hounding the New York Rangers on Tuesday morning. After a week of attending the Lightning's training camp, let's just say that I'd had my fill of preseason hounding.

But after hearing, and then reading, that New York's Scott Gomez, Markus Naslund and Nikolai Zherdev were among the Rangers making the trip to Humidity Bay, it didn't take long to pack the bag and make the trip over to Tampa.

You know what? I'm glad I did. Adding a baker's dozen of autographs to the collection, including a trio of pucks from Zherdev and a puck from the Blueshirt's top 2008 pick, has a way of changing one's perspective.

It didn't hurt, too, that two of the newest Rangers -- defensemen Dmitri Kalinin and Wade Redden -- also signed pucks (shown above). Heck, I was even stoked when defensman Daniel Girardi and Fredrik Sjostrom signed the cards shown below.

It just goes to show, I suppose, that every effort is rewarded.