Plenty of reasons

When a team travels to Hockey Bay for the third time in a season, it might be hard to find the motivation to load up the hockey hounding bag. Thankfully, I've only heard about that.

I certainly had no issues Saturday (other than a balky ATM forcing me to use quarters to pay for parking) heading out for a gametime-only session for the Carolina Hurricanes.

Granted, it would have been nice to just kick back and chill out after a busy morning at the newspaper. But, when a team carries a Hall of Famer and one of Colin's buddies on its staff and roster, the motivation comes quite easily.

In all, we added another 30 autographs to the collection.

Perhaps the biggest reward for making the trip -- beyond spending some quality time with Colin -- was this puck from Carolina's associate coach Ron Francis. He might be considered a toughie, but you must remember he limits his signing to just before heading to the rink at gametime. One-pers are another rule, too.

Getting Erik Cole on the Hurricanes mini helmet (shown above) was another reason. After being traded back to his original NHL club, it was a no-brainer to add him to the work-in-progress cherry-picking piece.

Signing cards were, from left, Patrick Eaves, Chad LaRose and Sergei Samsonov.

The highlight list may be short, but it's sweet:

~ Colin's first blog post on an equipment sheet he drew for goalie Cam Ward; and
~ Hall of Famer Ron Francis drawing attention to his signature on Colin's team sheet.

Want to see some Hurricanes signing? Check out the gallery.