Flashbacks 06.10

It's been nearly three weeks since the last installment of this summer space filler. How about a mixture of team and player reports from Hound Central 3.0, 2.0 and 1.0?

April 2, 2008: Atlanta Thrashers
Oct. 27, 2007: Buffalo Sabres
Feb. 20, 2007: Florida's Eddie Belfour
Oct. 29, 2006: San Jose Sharks
Feb. 17, 2006: Hall of Famer Stan Mikita

Know the Bible?

Did you know that Doug Waechter, a St. Petersburg, Fla., native and pitcher for the Kansas City Royals, incorporates a Bible verse in his autograph? Well, he does, and that's just fine with us.

So, which one does he use? You'll have to check out Baseball Mondays, our offseason blog on our baseball-hounding adventures, to find out.

He could relate

Seeing that May's Win this Auto contest featured an NHL official practice puck signed by Colin, it was only right, Hound Central 4.0 decided, that he picked the winner.

It didn't take him long. After reading each of the four entries, Colin decided it was Petey who would win the autographed puck.

Here's Petey's entry about his favorite youth hockey moment:

"My favorite youth hockey moment came when I was about Colin's age. We had this big goalie who came out to help us. It was always a big thrill to score on him, even in practice. I think I got five goals one time, but never 10. That must have been great."

Now, if Petey will send me an e-mail, available at my profile, we'll get this puck, signed by Colin following his 10-goal performance in a recent practice, ready for delivery.

Remember, too, that this is the final contest of the 2008-09 hockey-hounding campaign. I hope you enjoyed it.

Top Shelf: 2009 NHL draft prospects

Want to know who was the first Hockey Bay hound to get an autograph earlier today from John Tavares, the likely No. 1 overall pick at the 2009 NHL Entry Draft?

How about Colin? Yeah, Colin. My Colin.

After nearly four hours of waiting out convention crowds, false alarms and near 90 degree temperatures, Tavares and his two fellow top NHL Draft prospects -- forward Matt Duchene and Swedish defenseman Victor Hedman -- signed autographs for all three of us before their dog-and-pony show for the Tampa Bay Lightning braintrust.

As they left the Marriott Waterside, walking toward a waiting Escalade, we decided to each pick one prospect to stop. I stopped Hedman, Chris took Duchene and Colin, using his "cute kid" status to its full advantage, singled out Tavares.

Guess what? It worked. He got all three to sign this Nike stick blade.

Colin's effort, too, made up for his old man's miss on Tavares. Not bad for an 8-year-old, huh?

No shame in these

With the John Tavares, Victor Hedman and Matt Duchene -- the top 2009 NHL Entry Draft prospects -- in Tampa earlier today for a meet-and-greet with the Tampa Bay Lightning brass, a handful of Hockey Bay hounds took it upon themselves to welcome the trio of soon-to-be millionaires to Tampa.

As you can see, Duchene, a forward who signed the Brampton Battalion puck, and Hedman, a Swedish defenseman who signed a NHL practice puck, allowed me to add to our collection, When it came to Tavares, who often personalizes items, I flat-out missed with two pucks.

I suppose I could've asked as he sat in the back seat of a waiting Escalade outside the Marriott Waterside, after I got the pucks from Hedman and Duchene. Thankfully, Tavares did sign something for Colin.

Who knows, maybe I'll head back over tomorrow morning and try my luck again. If not, he'll be around during the 2009-10 campaign.

Still, snagging two of the top three likely picks at the NHL Draft later this month isn't anything to sneeze at.

Not a Crab among them

Can you guess what Florida State League team nearly filled up a team ball for Colin during two games last week? Here's a hint: It's one of the Tampa Bay Rays' farm teams. Need another? Check out Baseball Mondays.

Little Gray Box: Ryan Getzlaf

There was a time when I had little other than pucks for Anaheim's Ryan Getzlaf to sign. Namely, a quick demotion to the Portland Pirates, the Duck's AHL affiliate, during his rookie NHL season. That's when this cheapskate card came in quite handy.

Could've been Joey

With only one of 25 votes picking the Boston Bruins over the San Jose Sharks as the biggest choke in the 2008-09 NHL playoffs, one could surmise that it was a Sharks fan or player who felt the sting of the latest Hound Central 4.0.

One unproven theory could be that it was San Jose's Joey Thornton, a former member of the Bruins organization, who cast the sole vote against the Sharks, the Western Conference's top-ranked team, being the biggest disappointment of this season's playoffs. If it was (and, really, I doubt it), Jumbo Joe needs to get some counseling for his denial.

Sorry, but the Sharks were, indeed, the poster boys for playoff upsets. Though Boston's loss disappointed Bruins Nation, it wasn't nearly as gut-wrenching as San Jose's first-round collapse.

Question: Biggest choke

San Jose Sharks: 24 out of 25 votes cast (96 percent)
Boston Bruins: 1 out of 25 votes (4 percent)

Joining the 21st century

I finally got around to joining Facebook. Now, I'm pondering whether Twitter is nothing more than a passing fad for narcissistic egoists.

Update: 10 Big Sigs

Before the 2008-09 hockey hounding season down here in Hockey Bay, I predicted that these items would be added to the collection.

Let's see how I did:

No. 10: Montreal's Saku Koivu on the Canadiens' legends jersey - Did not obtain

No. 9: Dallas' Brad Richards on a Stars puck

No. 8: San Jose's Dan Boyle on a Sharks puck

No. 7: A team-signed Boston Bruins jersey

No. 6: New Jersey's Martin Brodeur on a replica jersey

No. 5: Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby on Colin's #87 Penguins jersey - Did not obtain.

No. 4: Columbus' Rick Nash on Blue Jackets and Team Canada pucks

No. 3: Pucks from Chicago's Patrick Kane (Blackhawks, London Knights and Team USA) and Jonathan Toews (Blackhawks, Team Canada and University of North Dakota)

No. 2: Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk, Nicklas Lidstrom, Brian Rafalski and Henrik Zetterberg on Red Wings pucks

No. 1: Chicago's Nikolai Khabibulin (provided he stays), Columbus' Fredrik Modin (provided he stays healthy) and Toronto's Pavel Kubina on our Tampa Bay Lightning 2004 Stanley Cup Champions items. - Not a single item.

Looking back, it wasn't a great season, but it wasn't bad. Though Crosby signed during his visits to Hockey Bay, I missed getting him to sign. Perhaps, too, I overshot on the goals for the Red Wings. And Koivu signed a Canadiens team helmet instead.

The biggest disappointment, though, was not adding to the Tampa Bay Lightning 2004 Stanley Cup Champions items. One would think that the No. 1 item on the 10 Big Sigs campaign would take precedence, but a combination of players not traveling to Hockey Bay (Khabibulin and Modin) and simply forgetting (Kubina) worked against me.

Still, I'm happy to have added what we did. I'm sure, too, that this project will return for the 2009-10 hockey hounding campaign. This time, though, I'll have to keep my eyes on the prize, won't I?

Fan Pack attack II

Though I didn't enjoy much success in my fan pack efforts, it's nice to know that Moody, Hound Central 4.0's roving Southeast correspondent, had a great season getting professional hockey teams to send him a ton of free goodies.

Next season, I'm taking a different approach. Rather than sending our requests in bulk e-mails (appearing, I hate to admit, as a spammer), I'll send out a couple a day to select teams. Cherry-picking, I suppose, but that's my prerogative.

In the meantime, these items, received by Moody over the past few months, cap the fan pack reports for the 2008-09 hockey hounding:

Team: Dallas Stars
League: National Hockey League
Items: Player cards for Mike Modano and Marty Turco, oversized player cards for Trevor Daley, Brenden Morrow, Steve Ott and Tobias Stephen, a sticker set and a Stars mini pennant.

Team: Frolunda HC
League: Elitserien, or the Swedish Elite League
Items: Autographed player sheet of goalie Johan Holmqvist, a former member of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Team: SC Bern
League: Swiss National League A
Items: Autographed player sheet of Martin Gelinas, a former NHL player.

Among the other teams to send items not previously profiled:

~ the New York Islanders sent out a team poster; and
~ the Rockford Ice Hogs of the American Hockey League sent a program and player photos of Evan Brophey, Mike Brennan and Bryan Bickell.

Three things to do

Now, I know I'm not the only person who has to work on Memorial Day. So, if you're lucky enough to have the day off and family cookout is hours away, here is a hat trick of activities to keep you busy:

~ weigh in on the Hockey Bay Houndings Awards;
~ see who's made a play for a puck autographed by Colin; and
~ test your hockey knowledge on our latest hockey quiz.

You can thank me later.

A trophy and Tommy John

So, what do those two things have in common? Check out Baseball Mondays, the offseason pursuit of Hound Central 4.0's top two hounds, to find out.

While you're there, you might also want to see how Colin did with his first team sheet for a Major League Baseball club.

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.

Just one more

In compiling the season-ending update for Hound Central 4.0's Slovakian team jersey, I discovered that an autograph went uncounted. Updated totals for the 2008-09 hounding campaign reflect the change.

Little Gray Box: Rick Nash

Want to know how much I like this new Hound Central 4.0 feature? So much so that I'd post two within three days. I hope you don't mind.

This is our first autograph from Columbus' Rick Nash, snagged when the Blue Jackets visited Beantown during the 2002-03 season.

Flashbacks 05.20

Let's try something new with this edition of Flashbacks, shall we? How about team reports from Hound Centrals 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0?

Hopefully, you'll find something of interest here:

Jan. 23, 2008: Edmonton Oilers
Oct. 25, 2007: Philadelphia Flyers
April 3, 2007: Carolina Hurricanes
Feb. 13, 2007: Phoenix Coyotes
Sept. 10, 2005: Boston Bruins rookie camp

Boys will be boys

So, Tampa Bay's Ryan Malone is a guest on today's NHL Live!, the cameras and audio rolling, when his cell phone rings, interrupting the live interview.

Go ahead, say co-hosts Rob Simpson and Sam Rosen, take the call.

Who is it? It's Lightning teammate Steven Stamkos, calling from Tampa, telling Malone that he's watching the show.

More humorous than riveting, I'll grant you that, but it's further proof that Stamkos' confidence is growing.

Reasons to believe

Every so often, in my hockey-hounding travels, I stumble upon a piece of hockey memorabilia that appears to have seen some game action in the National Hockey League. In this case, it's a right-handed goalie catching glove from Daren Puppa, who played for the Buffalo Sabres, Toronto Maple Leafs and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Though it didn't come with any certificate of authenticity (which, really, is worth only the paper it's printed upon, no matter the dealer), the personalization on the cuff certainly adds a touch of credibility.

Further evidence, I believe, is that a quick image search at google.com yielded photographs of him wearing a glove like this.

The only way to be certain, I suppose, is to ask Puppa if it is, indeed, one of his game-used gloves. Someday, our paths will cross. Hopefully, he'll sign it. I'll ask him then.

My two favorite things about the glove: The eyes atop The Hook and the fact that it cost less than $25.

Update: 85 Young Guns

After stopping by our local card shop -- the House of Cards in Pinellas Park -- I learned those 85 Young Guns I pulled from a hobby box of 2008-09 Upper Deck Hockey Series 2 were likely part of a nuclear-hot case.

It seems that other hockey card collectors who bought boxes at The House of Cards also reported insane amounts of Young Guns as they ripped open packs. In one case, Young Guns filled entire packs.

Honestly, I can't imagine Upper Deck making a conscious decision to do that. To me, it sounds more like someone putting stacks of Young Guns, rather than base cards, into the collator.

Still, though, no complaints.