A real clunker

It'll have to go down as a pretty sad day in Hound Central history. When the biggest highlight of hounding the Pittsburgh Penguins Tuesday is this Tampa Bay Lightning coin card of Ruslan Fedotenko, well, you see where I'm headed.

Even this puck, signed by Jordan Staal, a player with a growing reputation for being a toughie, hardly makes up for the disappointment of, once again, missing out on Sidney Crosby.

Though he signed for a few folks, I was too far back in the crowd to get close enough for him to sign Colin's replica Crosby jersey.

Yes, it's disappointing. It would've been nice to have him sign it for Colin. Thankfully, he'll be around for awhile and my luck will turn.

The same situation took place with Marc-Andre Fleury. Again, I was too deep in the crowd, a residual effect of Crosby's appearance, to get within Fleury's range. Yes, it's been a long season.

Evgeni Malkin? Never saw him leave for morning skate. And I don't remember seeing off coming back off the team's bus.

Oh, well, can't win them all, can we?

Well, we did get backup goalie Mathieu Garon to sign the Manchester Monarchs practice jersey. All told, the effort for the Penguins produced seven autographs. Yes, seven autographs.

Now that I'm done feeling sorry for myself, I must say the day wasn't a total bust. These alone made the trip well worth the time:

~ Right winger Bill Guerin, acquired in a trade-deadline deal, signing the sixth puck in less than 13 months; and
~ Appreciating defenseman Philippe Boucher's placement of an autograph. Yes, it was that bad.

Though I was too busy missing out on Crosby and Fleury to get pictures of them signing for a handful of hounds. I put together a second gallery of the season for the Penguins.