One down, 27 to go

After a summer of waiting for the 2008-09 hockey hounding campaign to begin in earnest, let's just say I couldn't wait to see the Carolina Hurricanes come to town. Not only did they represent the first team in for the regular season, but they also lived up to their reputation as a fairly decent signing team.

Sure, goalie coach Tom Barrasso might be a little tough on most dealers and hounds. Forward Ray Whitney, too, has a new move -- ducking through a restaurant at the team's hotel -- to avoid signing. For the most part, though, and this is based on multiple reports from the morning-skate session, the 'Canes are capable signers.

Seeing that I had to work Saturday morning, our hounding adventure was limited to game time, when players walked to the St. Pete Times Forum. It was then that defenseman Joni Pitkanen signed this puck, the 50th of the 2008-09 hounding campaign.

Who else signed? A look at that Hurricanes mini helmet above shows that centers Rod Brind'Amour and Eric Staal stopped to sign. So did goalie Cam Ward and rookie center Brandon Sutter, among others.

All told, we added another 20 autographs, including five pucks, to the collection in little less than a hour.

Signing cards, shown above, on Saturday were Ryan Bayda, Matt Cullen, Chad LaRose, Pitkanen, Sergei Samsonov and Dennis Seidenberg.