Andre who?

There was a time, and it wasn't all that long ago, when Tampa Bay's Andre Roy stole the hearts of the Lightning faithful. He was the Bolts' tough guy, sticking up for his less-manly teammates.

These days, Tampa Bay's falling for another tough guy. This time, it's Zenon Konopka. He, too, sticks up for his timid teammates.

He's from the old school, too, eschewing such showboat tactics employed by Ottawa's wannabe thug, Chris Neil. He's all business, going about his job and, when he's done, heading to the box or off the ice.

That's why Colin had Konopka sign this Lightning puck during the team's Unplugged event tonight over in Brandon. Konopka may not light the lamp all that often, but he sure knows how to light up opponents.

Just ask Washington's David Steckel, who took an old-fashioned face-pounding Tuesday night in Tampa.

Tough call

To be honest, I'm not sure what Colin was more excited about earlier tonight at the Tampa Bay Lightning's Unplugged event -- getting a bunch of autographs or having his picture taken with one of the Lightning Girls.

After the Q-and-A session was over, Colin had Lightning players and representatives, from left, Matt Walker, Chris Dingman, Mattias Ohlund and Dave Andreychuk sign an Unplugged card. Alex Tanguay, who's shown on the card, was supposed to be one of the guests.

Dingman and Ohlund also signed these cards for Colin. All told, he snagged 17 autographs on the night.

Door prize winner

Besides having the opportunity to ask Tampa Bay's Mattias Ohlund and Matt Walker questions during the Lightning's Unplugged event and score some autographs, the biggest draw for the event were some pretty neat door prizes -- tickets to next Thursday's home opener against New Jersey, autographed hats and T-shirts and jerseys signed by the guests of honor.

As you can see, we won one of the door prizes -- an autographed Ohlund Lightning replica jersey.

Threads: Mattias Ohlund

In preparing for tonight's trip to check out Unplugged, the Tampa Bay Lightning's new promotional campaign, I made sure that the card book included a jersey card of defenseman Mattias Ohlund. It was Colin, though, who made sure he signed the card, adding to one of Hound Central 5.0's season projects -- Threads.

Captain Dave

Going into tonight's Unplugged session with Tampa Bay's Mattias Ohlund and Matt Walker, it was expected we'd score some autographs from those guys. But when Dave Andreychuk, the Lightning's 2004 Stanley Cup-winning captain, signed these four cards, well, that was a bonus.