Youth served

Over the past five months, as I’ve had ample time to reflect during my self-imposed summer off, I’ve realized the importance of finding the silver lining in the cloudiest of situations. A trip to the Bruins practice facility yesterday proves my point.

Though I’ve written earlier that Brian Leetch was cordial, I can now say that his honeymoon with Boston-area hounds is beginning to wear off. After approaching the graybeard, whose value apparently will be the experience he should be passing along to the younger members of the B’s defensive corps, accused me of repeatedly hitting him up to sign the bases for his McFarlane’s Toronto Maple Leafs action figure.

While I willingly plead guilty to having him sign a number of pucks and a team-signed helmet, this was the first I’ve asked him, or any other NHL player, to sign one of these bases. Furthermore, I asked him to personalize to my son, Colin.

Getting back to the silver lining, though, it’s nice to know that some of the Bruins enjoy the interaction with the fans and don’t see their signatures on sports memorabilia as lost opportunities to add to their mountains of seldom-earned money.

As we watched practice yesterday, Colin was the recipient of pucks from Andrew Alberts and Kevin Dallman. Afterwards, as the team made its way to the Montreal-bound charter, we were able to get those pucks (top row, from left, in photo above), as well as one from Pat Leahy, obtained during the team’s FanFest some weeks ago, personally signed to Colin.

It’s nice to know that most of the younger generation of NHL players don’t place a premium on their scribbles, and in doing so, creates a silver lining for fans – young and old. And the fact that Nick Boynton signed a hat trick of pucks (bottom row, from left: Boston Bruins, Providence Bruins and Ottawa 67s) helped, too.