Hounding report: Florida Panthers II

After a couple of low-number outings for the Boston Bruins and Phoenix Coyotes, the Florida Panthers' trip north to Tampa Bay last week was just what I needed. Not that my confidence was shaken, mind you, but it never hurts to have a solid day of hounding.

All told, I added another 21 autographs from a dozen players to the collection, getting more from a single team that we did from the Bruins and Coyotes combined.

Signing cards, shown above were:

Top row: Brian Campbell, Dan Ellis and Tomas Fleischmann;
Middle row: Tom Gilbert, Scott Gomez and Jonathan Huberdeau; and
Bottom row: Ed Jovanovski, Vincent Trocheck and Scott Upshall.

One of the highlights of the day, and likely the biggest reason for making the trip across Tampa Bay, was the recently acquired Roberto Luongo, who signed this McFarlane's SportsPick figurine commemorating Canada's gold medal in men's hockey at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver:

Two Panthers players also signed four cards each for me:

Brad Boyes

Dmitry Kulikov

Jovanovski also added to the Threads collection.

Hounding report: Boston Bruins II

Many times in the past, especially when an outing's rewards fail to meet effort, I'll promote the concept of quality over quantity. Honestly, it's pure spin, putting the best face forward on what is often a disappointing day.

The Boston Bruins' last Saturday to Hockey Bay could be classified like that. But, unlike other times, this visit was more about a quality moment, most likely the best one of the season, trumping the 11 autographs we scored in our tag-team effort.

If you stopped by the blog Sunday -- and I hope you did -- you likely read my latest Hockey Life column. If you haven't, well, you can do it now. It touches upon how Colin was able to get Boston's Patrice Bergeron, his best NHL buddy, to come off the team's bus to sign the cast on his broken right ankle.

Even if we hadn't scored another autograph, the day -- and that moment -- was truly top-shelf, a rocket-launcher snipe where Mama not only hides the cookies, but her "secret" stash of chocolate.

Like Colin said, and it was unsolicited, having Patrice do that was the "best autograph of my life."

Thankfully, we did score a few more autographs, including Jarome Iginla, shown above, on a McFarlane's SportsPick figurine commemorating Canada's gold medal in men's hockey at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

Other Bruins signing that day were:

Gregory Campbell, from left, Zdeno Chara, Iginla and Daniel Paille.