Update: Air Canada Centre

Professional courtesies are cool. They certainly help you get into places that others less connected can not. Given that access, any hound worth his or her salt needs to be put the target-rich opportunity to good use. Anything less, I'm afraid, is unacceptable.

For instance, there's Al, Hound Central 4.0's correspondent in Toronto. From time to time, he's able to gain postgame access to the visiting team locker room area at the Air Canada Centre. As a result, he and his children have added some pretty sweet autographs to their collection.

How close do they get to the players? Want a slice of pizza from Washington's Alex Ovechkin? Go ahead, ask.

In a stellar example of practicing quality over quantity, taking place a little more than a week ago, Washington's Alex Ovechkin and Sergei Fedorov signed following a game against the Leafs.

A closer look at the latest haul. Ovechkin's auto is much different than his rare road "AO8."

Another postgame visit, taken place earlier this season, yielded these items from Philadelphia Flyers players: 8x10s signed by, clockwise from top left, Mike Knuble, Mike Richards, Martin Biron and Simon Gagne.

Hall of Famer Bob Clarke signed the Flyers puck.

Here's the end result of some real hustle, a Philadelphia Flyers team helmet signed after a game in Toronto.

Players signing the helmet were Jeff Carter, Matt Carle, Scottie Upshall, Luca Sbisa, Knuble, Antero Niittymaki, Andreas Nodl, Richards, Andrew Alberts, Kimmo Timonen, Scott Hartnell, Riley Cote, Joffrey Lupul, Josh Gratton, Biron, Jon Kalinski and Braydon Coburn.

From what I hear, though, not everyone in the vicinity was as thrilled with the effort shown in putting together the piece. From that point forward, quality took precedence over quantity.

Still, though, some things are worth a little grief.

Here's a nice haul from another instance of postgame access: three 8x10s and a puck from Ovechkin. The bottom puck is signed by teammate Michael Nylander.

Bounty from earlier trips include McFarlane bases signed by Ovechkin and Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby, who signed as he walked from the visiting team locker room to the team bus.

Gallery: Pittsburgh Penguins

Want to know one way to round out a lackluster day in hounding photos? Show a few items that other Hockey Bay hounds secured from members of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

A tip of my old, roughed-up Cooper SK600 to Andy and Chris F., two of Hockey Bay's top hounds for their assistance:

See what happens when you hustle. You get not one, but two autographs from center Sidney Crosby, just like Chris F. did over the course of two days.

Center Evgeni Malkin, or "Gino" to his friends and hounds, signed this McFarlane SportsPick base for Andy.

Center Jordan Staal, who tries to avoid hounds as much as he can, didn't get past Chris F., who had him sign his McFarlane SportsPick base.

Goalie Marc-Andre Fleury signed this wallpaper image, from his days with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, for Andy, who was on his game, so to speak.

Not sure why, but defenseman Sergei Gonchar signs a Sidney Crosby replica jersey. Then again, knowing how difficult it is to snag Crosby's signature, I suppose any on a Crosby jersey works.

Winger Ruslan Fedotenko, who scored the Tampa Bay Lightning's Stanley Cup-winning goal in 2004, renews acquaintances with fans.

Got mine

It took a couple trips, but I finally tracked down the McFarlane's Sports Picks NHL Series 19 issue of former Boston Bruins coach Don Cherry.

Given the popularity of his Hockey Night in Canada segments as well as his heroic histrionics in Beantown, I imagine this Cherry issue, the second done by McFarlane's, will be extremely popular and, as a result, perhaps hard to find.

With online prices ranging from $16 (eBay) to $34, I'm glad I picked up mine for $11 at a Toys 'R Us.

Looks kinda good, too, with the replica Bruins jersey I got at 50 percent off. It's No. 7 on Hound Central's 10 Big Sigs.