Getting the one he wanted

Here it is, the last day of Colin's summer vacation. And while he's all ready and packed for the first day of school, we made a special trip out to our local Target to pick up a few more things.

At the top of the list was a birthday present for one of Colin's new buddies, Christopher, whom he "taught" how to skate over the summer. We also picked out a new Lego Star Wars set, a reward for Colin's very good behavior over the summer.

The last thing we picked up, which officially marks the beginning of our hockey-hounding season, were four fat packs of the 2011-12 Victory hockey cards. A low-end product, it's become a staple of our efforts to trim the hounding budget.

One card out of the 144, though, drew the biggest smile of the day. Midway through the last pack, Colin got the card he wanted: Boston's Patrice Bergeron.

"That's going on top of the stack," he told me. "Right where it belongs."