Stress relief

In all honesty, I never should have gotten a single autograph Thursday from the New York Islanders. Instead, I came home with another 28. You see, the Houndmobile, nearing the end of its long run, threw a belt as I made my way to Tampa.

After nursing it into a parking space, I came to the realization it couldn't be fixed there. I called AAA and arranged for it to be towed back to my mechanic in St. Petersburg. And then Moody, Hound Central 5.0's senior correspondent, agreed to drive me back home.

I figured what the heck, might as well get some autographs. What was I going to do? Sit around and stew about a car repair. That didn't sound like a whole lot of fun. So, Moody and I headed over to the team's hotel, albeit a bit later than normal.

But even that worked out. As we walked across a bridge, who did we run into? How about the Islanders' John Tavares, Jeff Tambellini and Matt Moulson? Needless to say, we put our private signing session to good use.

Among the 21 cards signed yesterday:

Top row: Blake Comeau, Bruno Gervais and Andrew MacDonald;
Middle row: Matt Moulson, Kyle Okposo and Richard Park; and
Bottom row: Dwayne Roloson, Rob Schremp and Jeff Tambellini.

The other highlight of the day? Getting Doug Weight to sign a couple career highlight cards.

Oh, yeah. the car repair? It was $230, plus a $95 tow. Who says hockey hounding isn't an expensive hobby?

How cold was it?

Not that I'm complaining or anything, but it was a bit odd to find frost on the Houndmobile's windshield after leaving the paper late last night. Remember, too, this is Florida. Thank goodness the defroster still works.

Thanksgiving travels

Rather than joining the masses traveling great distances for the Thanksgiving holiday, we opted to stay close to home. No jammed airports. No clogged highways. No dysfunctional family gatherings, thank you very much.

Sure, having to work on Turkey Day (at holiday and overtime pay, mind you) played a major role in our close-to-home holiday activities. What we did do, though, was put one of Colin's days off from school from extremely good use by hounding the team that Sabres fans, such as myself, love to loathe -- the Toronto Maple Loafs (Sorry, Al, I can't help myself).

After tending to some car repairs (two new tires for the Houndmobile) and ignoring early morning showers, we found ourselves inside the St. Pete Times Forum on Wednesday watching the Loafs take part in their pregame morning skate.

It wasn't long, though, before Colin took over, snagging, in total, 37 autographs, including these two pucks from rookie goalie Jonas "The Monster" Gustavsson, for the collection. My contribution? Identifying players. After all, it was my only day off of the week.

Among those signing cards:

Top row: Francois Beauchemin, Jason Blake and Garnet Exelby;
Middle row: Jeff Finger, Mikhail Grabovski and Phil Kessel; and
Bottom row: Nikolai Kulemin, Jamal Mayers and Colton Orr

Other highlights of the trip:

~ Colin getting a used goalie stick from Joey MacDonald;
~ Seeing that Luke Schenn's autograph hasn't improved that much; and
~ getting an autograph from the man credited with inventing the butterfly-style of goaltending.

Day (before) trip

Between Colin's hockey game and my inability to be in two places at one time, I knew full well that hounding the New Jersey Devils before Saturday's game against the Tampa Bay Lightning was out of the question. As a result, I went into full mop-up duty the day before the game, adding another 21 autographs last Friday between trips to the team's hotel and the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon, where the Devils held an afternoon practice.

The day-long effort, overshadowed by concerns (eventually unfounded, thank God) of a costly repair for the aging Houndmobile, was important, I believe, for two reasons:

1.) It was New Jersey's second, and final, trip of the regular season to Hockey Bay, meaning I could miss, for the first season in recent memory, autographs from living legend Martin Brodeur. I whiffed on Brodeur the first trip in, so adding at least another was a top priority.

2.) I wanted to knock out most of the cards I'd prepared this season for the Devils. After so many seasons of hounding the Devils, from the cold streets of Beantown to the humid air of Hockey Bay, I really don't have much, in terms of pucks, for the team. That's why my attention turned to cards. The fewer I have to put away for future usage, the better.

Among those who signed the 18 cards collected were:

Top row: Andy Greene, Matt Halischuk and Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond; and
Bottom row: Colin White, Travis Zajac and Dainius Zubrus.

Also signing cards were, from left, Nicklas Bergfors, Yann Danis, Rob Niedermayer and Andrew Peters.

Other highlights from the day:

~ A couple of pucks from future Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur;
~ Scoring a U.S.A. souvenir puck from Zach Parise; and
~ Having Andy Greene chip away at a couple specialty card sets.

Threads: Dany Heatley

It was getting down to the nitty-gritty Thursday afternoon in Tampa. In little more than an hour, Colin had a Little League game in St. Petersburg and I didn't want us to get caught in rush-hour traffic and be late for his game.

I'd just finished packing the hounding bag when San Jose's Dany Heatley left the hotel and headed over to sign autographs. Thankfully, the card book, containing this jersey card, was right on top. So was the Atlanta Thrashers puck that Colin had him sign.

Two minutes later, we were headed to the Houndmobile. We missed the majority of traffic, took the Gandy across Tampa Bay and made it to the diamond in plenty of time for Colin's game.

For the record, his Reds won, 2-0, and he was awarded the game ball for some gutsy play behind the plate.

Won't do that again

Made the mistake of leaving the Houndmobile's back windows open the other day during one of Hockey Bay's frequent torrential downpours. Compounding the error, the hounding bag got soaked. Lost a few Lightning game programs and about 20 cards. Lesson learned.