The Hockey Life: Week 30

Last Wednesday morning, I stumbled upon two face-value tickets for Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Wanting to put Colin in a position to watch his favorite team -- the Boston Bruins -- make the Stanley Cup Finals, it was a no-brainer to pull the trigger on the tickets.

After picking him up from school and putting him through a quick skating session, we headed over to Tampa. As always, we followed our pregame routine, venturing down to the glass so Colin would watch the team during warmups.

Only a few minutes in, a Bruins player skated up to Colin and tapped the glass in front of him. In his hand, he held a puck. Seconds later, he tossed it over to Colin. While this hasn't been that rare of an occurrence this season, the player who did it was a bit of a surprise.

Instead of Boston's Patrice Bergeron, Colin's best NHL buddy, it was, instead, Bruins rookie Tyler Seguin. Stunned by the gesture, Colin and I looked at each other with wide-eyed amazement.

For regular readers of Hound Central 5.0, it's common knowledge that Seguin didn't rank near the top of Colin's favorite NHL players, even despite playing for his hometown Bruins. A little incident earlier this season saw to that.

After Wednesday night's warmups, though, Colin now considers the matter closed.

"Apology accepted," he said.

The thumbs-down, too, was for the Lightning, not Seguin. I just hope that doesn't come back to haunt him.

He'll take it

Brett, owner of the top-shelf My Hockey Card Obsession blog, is one of Hound Central 5.0's most faithful readers. As a result, he's very familiar with Colin's passion for the Bruins. Brett, however, is a Canucks fan. And with the two clubs squaring off for Lord Stanley's Cup, he proposed a friendly wager.

If Boston wins, Brett will create a custom Stanley Cup Patrice Bergeron card for Colin to get signed. If the Bruins lose, though, Colin will create a Vancouver Canucks Stanley Cup Champions team sheet to get signed.

After consulting with Colin, he's accepted the wager and is looking forward to his new card. It'll look good, he said, with the other Bergeron card Brett created for him a few seasons ago.

Not too smart, folks

If you ask me, it was pretty freaking stupid for Lightning and Bruins fans to throw those plastic thunder drums onto the ice at the end of Game 6. Players from both teams got hit as did a few unsuspecting fans.

I mean, what were people thinking? That this was cool? Hardly. All it showed was that a few numskulls, likely fueled by a few too many overpriced alcoholic beverages, fell far short of acceptable behavior. I wonder, too, how many kids followed the leads shown by their parents?

It's one thing to cheer for your team or, within reason and boundaries of good taste, give an opponent a hard time. Tossing projectiles, however, crosses the line.

As for the Lightning, let's hope there was a lesson learned. As vigilant as they were about fans entering a game (bags checked, pockets emptied and a body scan with a metal detector), the organization showed a lack of foresight in handing out these items.