Team report: Montreal Canadiens

With Colin off on his Christmas break last week, it made perfect sense that we try to hound as many teams as we could during his two weeks off from school. It didn't hurt, either, that all three were Original Six teams. I guess that's what motivated me the most.

If you can't get up for an Original Six team like the Montreal Canadiens, no matter how many times you've hounded them, you have no business carrying a blue Sharpie. Last Thursday, I nearly burned through mine.

Much to my surprise, though, the Habs were a bit out of character. Normally a team that takes some effort, every player, including noted toughies Mike Cammalleri, Scott Gomez and Carey Price, worked the sizable line that formed outside the team's hotel. Once it was over, I was stunned at how easy it was.

Helping us rack up 75 autographs, which matches our season-high tag-team effort, were these players who signed the cards shown above:

Top row: Mike Cammalleri, Brian Gionta and Scott Gomez;
Middle row: Josh Gorges, Roman Hamrlik and Maxim Lapierre; and
Bottom row: Travis Moen, Tomas Plekanic and Jaroslav Spacek.

Also signing cards were:

Top row: Alex Auld, Hall Gill and Andrei Kostitsyn; and
Bottom row: Kirk Muller, Max Pacorietty and Benoit Pouliot.

Here's another instance, too, where cheap skates, what I lovingly call my homemade cards, come in handy.

Most every NHL teams, and the Canadiens were no exception, carry players who rarely have more than a handful of cards. In my case, I've run out of cards for Montreal's Mathieu Darche and Alexandre Picard.

Rather than let them pass by, though, I had them sign these two cards.

To me, it doesn't matter if a card is produced by a major card manufacturer. As long as it has room for a signature, and these cards do, there's little reason not to make them part of the collection.

Other highlights from a fruitful day of hockey hounding:

~ getting Habs goalie Carey Price to sign a McFarlane base;
~ using a different type of wallpaper image for Colin's team sheet; and
~ reinforcing a belief that it's best to catch a player early in his NHL career.