Best of days

Hounding in Toronto is like hounding in most any NHL city. You have your good days, bleeding a blue Sharpie dry. Conversely, you have your bad days, when uncapping a paint pen is a waste of time. If you're lucky, you'll have far more good days than bad.

For Al, Hound Central 5.0's man in Toronto, the month of March had a few good days of hounding. Besides loading up on the Toronto Marlies, the Maple Leafs' top farm club, he snagged a nice array of items from some of the Leafs' new arrivals and their teammates:

Al made sure, as any good hound would do, to make acquaintances with new Leafs defenseman Dion Phaneuf, snagging the pair of 8x10s and a McFarlane base shown above.

Other rewards of Al's efforts:

Blue Sharpie always looks good on a Team Sweden jersey. At least it does on this photo of Jonas Gustavsson, who will soon have his own McFarlane;

It looks pretty good, too, on these 8x10s from Jonas Gustavsson, top, and Jean-Sebastien Giguere;

All Star Game photos, like this one for Jean-Sebestian Giguere, are seldom turned down. An all-expense-paid trip to an NHL city for a weekend of showing off and wide-open hockey? Who wouldn't be happy to remember that?

And, not to be overlooked, 8x10s from Mikhail Grabovski, top, and Francis Beauchemin, shown celebrating the 2007 Stanley Cup championship with the Anaheim Ducks.