Pencil these in

After a long day of watching hockey, ordering a Wendy's single with everything but onions and watching Colin collect three foul balls, I've finally had enough time over the past few minutes to scribble a list of top 10 teams we'll hound during the 2009-10 campaign:

No. 10. New Jersey Devils, Oct. 8: It's always nice to see Marty.

No. 9. Montreal Canadiens, Dec. 30: Respect the Le Bleu-Blanc-et-Rouge.

No. 8. Vancouver Canucks, Feb. 9, 2010: A chance for redemption after missing them on their last trip to Hockey Bay.

No. 7. San Jose Sharks, Oct. 22: So many big names, so little time.

No. 6. Buffalo Sabres, March 18, 2010: Later, I'll attend the game with relatives from Western New York.

No. 5. Anaheim Ducks, Jan. 29, 2010: This team rewards effort.

No. 4. Phoenix Coyotes, March 16, 2010: But only if Wayne Gretzky is part of the organization. If not, the Coyotes trade places with the Canucks.

No. 3. Los Angeles Kings, Nov. 14: I'm burning a vacation day for this team. Lots of new faces certainly worthy of a bunch of pucks.

No. 2. Calgary Flames, Feb. 6, 2010: It's not just the Stanley Cup Finals history between the Flames and Lightning. It's an opportunity to snag a couple more pucks from Jarome Iginla and Jay Bouwmeester.

No. 1. Boston Bruins, Dec. 28: Three days after Christmas? Colin will be on vacation. I have the day off, too. Need I say anything more?

So, tell me. What are your top 10 hounding trips?

Outside the norm

Though we added only six signatures to the Slovakian team jersey over the 2008-09 hockey hounding campaign, it's hard to complain when Detroit's Marian Hossa is one of them. It's too bad, though, that Big Poppa Pump's distinctive signature, one of 11 collected on the jersey over the past two NHL seasons, is a bit sloppy.

While Canadian and USA jersey projects are popular, as well as those for Czech Republic, Finnish Russian and Swedish players, this particular effort represents another solid expansion of a project that's just outside the mainstream of hockey collecting.

Here's who signed over the past season during visits to Hockey Bay:

~ Colorado's Peter Budaj and Marek Svatos;
~ Detroit's Hossa and Tomas Kopecky;
~ Montreal's Jaroslav Halak; and
~ Tampa Bay's Andrej Meszaros.

Next season, we'll be looking to add, at the least, Buffalo's Andrej Sekera and Washington's Milan Jurcina. The list will grow, I presume, once the Lightning's 2009-10 schedule is released and I can run through rosters.

Likely candidates, based on my best guesses, would include Edmonton's Lubomir Visnovsky, Los Angeles' Michal Handzus, Minnesota's Marian Gaborik and Branko Radivojevic, and Vancouver's Pavol Demitra. Tampa Bay's Vladimir Mihalik seems like a lock, too.