On second thought

It was almost an afterthought to bring items for the Tampa Bay Lightning to sign Thursday, but I'm glad I made that call. Though we were primarily hounding the Detroit Red Wings, Colin and I put our relatively short time with the Lightning to good use.

All told, we probably spent less than 30 minutes trying to get autographs from the Lightning. In that time, though, we scored another 18 signatures, including a Sarnia Sting hat signed by the Bolts' star-in-training Steven Stamkos.

Besides Stamkos, other Bolts who signed yesterday were Evgeny Artyukhin (shown above), Steve Eminger, Marek Malik, Mark Recchi and Gary Roberts.

Eminger, the team's most recent acquisition for its turnstile-like blueline, added to the puck collection by signing these Lightning, Flyers and new-look Capitals pucks. This trio brought our Eminger collection to 10, dating to his days playing for the Portland Pirates of the American Hockey League.

Those signing cards were, from left, Artyukhin, Malik, Recchi and Roberts.

For the day, and this includes our efforts with the Red Wings, we added another 46 autographs to our collection.