Wasn't expecting this

Last Thursday, on the day before the Tampa Bay Lightning open its training camp for the 2010-11 season, the usual, albeit small, cast of Hockey Bay's hounding characters found its way over the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon.

After exchanging "How was your summer?" pleasantries, we got down to the task at hand, scoring autographs from Lightning players. My late arrival, I'd been told, meant I'd missed Lightning star Steven Stamkos before the start of the informal skate. Though I was disappointed to not have been in the right place at the right time, I was thankful that I missed getting the unusual scribble that Stamkos had doled out.

That all changed, thankfully, about two hours later when Stamkos, tooling around in his convertible, slowed down and asked a handful of us gathered in the parking lot if he'd missed any of us earlier in the day. Immediately, I spoke up, snagged this photo and walked up to Stamkos.

As you can see, he was more than happy to oblige my request that he personalize the photo to Colin. The signature, too, was much better than what I'd seen earlier in the day.