Philadelphia Flyers' Claude Giroux

"Giroux started his career (junior) by signing with the Gatineau Olympiques as a free agent after playing in the Central Jr. A League. During his rookie season, he scored 39 goals for a total of 103 points in only 69 games. He then entered the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, where the Philadlphia Flyers selected him 22nd overall.

Giroux made his NHL debut when the Flyers visited the Ottawa Senators on February 19, 2008, when he was called-up for a total of two games for the injury ridden Flyers.

Finishing his tenure in Gatineau, he helped the club win the QMJHL Playoffs and earned himself the Guy Lafleur Trophy as MVP in the QMJHL Playoffs by scoring 17 goals and 34 assists in 19 playoff games, also setting a franchise record.

The Flyers were an inconsistent team for the bulk of the 2009-10 season, however, the Flyers' fortunes turned dramatically after they entered the playoffs, on Giroux's game-winner in the shootout, going five-hole on Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers. Giroux was a major point producer in the first round of the playoffs, dismantling of the second seeded New Jersey Devils. The Flyers made an historic comeback from 3 games to 0 down against the Boston Bruins to win the next four and advance to the Eastern Conference Finals, where they dominated the Montreal Canadiens. Claude scored the winning goal in overtime vs. the Chicago Blackhawks in game 3 of the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals, but despite his continued production, the Flyers eventually lost in overtime in Game 6 of the finals. Giroux ended up with 21 points, cementing his reputation as an outstanding young talent." (wikipedia)

For those of you who know me, you know how big of a Flyers fan I am. I even travelled to the Philadelphia Flyers Charity Carnival last year to take in a game and meet some of the team. Claude Giroux, unfortunately, was one of the players that I missed.

I knew he was living in the Ottawa area and I was sure that it was just a matter of time before I found out he would be somewhere. Sure enough, I heard on the radio that Claude was doing a signing at Lacroix Source for Sports in Orleans.

I headed there after work and there was a bit of a line already formed. I was waiting for around 20 minutes before I was able to grab a photo and autograph.

It was worth the wait. I was really happy to meet one of my team's young stars.

2010 Olympic Gold Medalist: Dan Boyle

"Undrafted after four years with the Miami RedHawks of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA), Boyle was signed as a free agent by the Florida Panthers on March 30, 1998. He played his first two seasons in the Panthers' farm system in the AHL earning All-Rookie Team honours in 1999, as well as Second Team All-Star honours in 1999 and 2000. Boyle earned a full0time roster spot with the Panters in 2000-01. The next season, his fourth in Florida, he was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning in exchange for a fifth round draft choice.

Boyle quickly emerged as an offensive threat on the highly-talented Lightning, playing behind Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis and Brad Richards. He helped the team to the 2004 Stanley Cup championship.

He suffered a major setback, however, in September 2007, injuring himself in a freak accident after a pre-season game when a skate slipped off a hook in his locker and hit him in the left wrist, severing three tendons. Boyle underwent wrist surgery. He did not make a full comeback until January 24, 2008, scoring two goals in his return and soon thereafter was re-signed to a six-year, $40 million contract extension on February 25.

Despite coming off a recent contract extension with the Lightning, on July 4, 2008, Boyle was traded along with Brad Lukowich to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for Matt Carle, Ty Wishart, a first round pick in 2009 and a fourth round pick in 2010. Boyle was pressured to waive his no-trade clause by Tampa Bay's new ownership, who said they would otherwise place him on waivers where he would likely be claimed by the Atlanta Thrashers. Already knowing Joe Thorning, Patrick Marleau and Evgeni Nabokov, Boyle agreed to be traded to the Sharks.

On December 30, 2009, Steve Yzerman named Boyle to the 2010 Winter Olympics team as a full member. On February 28, 2010, the team defeated the United States to win Canada's eighth gold medal in Olympic men's hockey." (wikipedia)

The all-star defenceman was in Ottawa on July 25, 2010 to help fight cancer. He was here as the guest of honour for the Dan Côté Foundation Charity Golf Tournament held at the Meadows in Gloucester.

The event was a 1pm shotgun start. I arrived at the course at around 12:45 and met up with Steve. All the participants in the golf tournament were sitting in power carts getting ready to head to their starting holes.

We approached Dan and he was very nice about it. He signed four photos for Steve. He then signed my 16x20.

He also signed an 8x10 for my collection and was nice enough to let me take a photo with him.

Definately a nice guy!

Running Count: 5 autographs
Drew Doughty
Cory Perry
Martin Brodeur
Rick Nash
Dan Boyle

2010 Olympic Gold Medalist: Rick Nash

"Drafted out of the Ontario Hockey League by the Blue Jackets first overall in the 2002 NHL Entry Draft, Rick Nash played with the London Knights for two seasons, earning the Emms Family Award in 2001 as the league rookie of the year. He began his NHL career with Columbus the season immediately following his draft and was nominated for the Calder Trophy as NHL rookie of the year. In his second NHL season, Nash scored a career-high 41 goals to tie with Jarome Iginla and Ilya Kovalchuk for the Rocket Richard Trophy as league goal-scoring champion. Nash is a four-time NHL All-Star and has been awarded the NHL Foundation Player Award in 2009 for his work in the community.
On December 30, 2009, Nash was selected to play for Team Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. After starting the tournament on Sidney Crosby's wing, he was switched to a line with Mike Richards and Jonathan Toews, who was named Best Forward. Nash contributed two goals and three assists in Canada's gold medal win.

Nash was also one of the four NHL players that attended the Mike Weir Charity Classic this year. I figured I would try and get my 16x20 of Team Canada signed by him as well.

He is a super nice guy. Even after teeing off his first shot, Rick would head back to the crowd to sign more autographs.

I hope to meet him again in the future so that, like with Brodeur, I can get a photo with him to add to my collection.

Running Count: 4 autographs
Drew Doughty
Corey Perry

Martin Brodeur
Rick Nash

2010 Olympic Gold Medalist: Martin Brodeur

"In his 19-year tenure with the New Jersey Devils, Martin Brodeur has led them to three Stanley Cup championships and has taken them to the playoffs in every year but one.

He is the NHL's all-time leader in regular season wins, shutouts, and games played, and holds numberous other league and frachise records. Brodeur is the only goalie in NHL history with eight 40-win seasons. He is a four-time Vezina Trophy winner, a five-time Jennings Trophy winner, a ten-time NHL All-Star, a Calder Memorial Trophy winner, and one of only two NHL goaltenders to have scored goals in both the regular season and the playoffs.

Brodeur uses a hybrid style of goaltending by standing up more than butterfly style goalies. He is known for his puck handling, his positional play, and his reflexes, especially with his glove hand. Brodeur's prowess in puck handling directly led the NHL to change its rules regarding when goalies were allowed to handle the puck outside the crease.

In the 2002 Olympics at Salt Lake City, Utah, Brodeur was initially named the backup behind Curtis Joseph, but following Joseph's losing the tournament opener against Sweden, Brodeur was named the starting goaltender the rest of the way, and won gold for Canada. He had the best GAA in the tournament and went undefeated, stopping 31 of 33 shots in the gold-medal victory of Team USA.

He was one of the three goalies on Team Canada for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. He registered a shootout win against Switzerland and a loss to the United States. After the loss to the US, he was benched for the remainder of the 2010 Games in favor of Roberto Luongo." (wikipedia)

Marty was one of four NHL players that attended the Mike Weir Charity Classic this year. When I heard he was going to be there, I thought it would be a great chance to get my 16x20 of Team Canada signed. For a player that is supposedly a bad signer during the regular season, he did a great job of doing the opposite at the golf tourny. Marty signed after every hole.

Although I wasn't able to get a photo with the future hall-of-famer, I was able to get an 8x10 signed as well.

Hopefully I will have another encounter with Marty in the future so that I can add a picture with him to my collection.

Running Count: 3 autographs
Drew Doughty
Corey Perry
Martin Brodeur

Mike Weir Charity Classic 2010

As part of the RBC Canadian open, Mike Weir hosts a charity pro-am that features marquee celebrities from the music, sports and entertainment industries, as well as top stars on the PGA Tour.

Last year marked the innaugural event and hosted celebrities such as Joe Thornton, Rick Nash, Michael Jordan and Kevin Costner. The second annual event happened in mid-July and had a decent lineup as well.

Five of us headed down to Toronto on the Sunday night for the one day tournament that was scheduled for Monday. After a brief stop at the hotel, Steve and I hopped onto a shuttle and headed for the airport. When we arrived we met up with Avi and Neil.

Kevin Dillon's flight, naturally, was late arriving. One of the first people off the flight was Noah Wyle who is best known for his role as Dr. John Carter on the TV drama ER. He was a nice guy. He signed a couple of autographs for the guys and took a photo with me.

We asked him if Kevin Dillon was on his flight and he confirmed that he was and that he should be along shortly. Noah then went outside to wait for his ride.

When Kevin came out, we headed him off and asked for a few autographs. He seemed angry about it and said that he only does one per person. I got my cast photo signed, as that one is the one that I hope to get signed by all the guys.

I was able to grab a photo with him though.

When then headed outside and saw Noah still waiting. He asked us if we had seen Kevin. "Yes, we saw him. You were a lot nicer than him." He started laughing. We then headed to the hotel to get some rest before the next day.

On Monday morning, we drove to Woodbine raceway to take the shuttle to the golf course. The lineup for the tournament was very strange. The actual tournament was happening at one course while the driving range for the tournament was located elsewhere. When we arrived at the tournament, we walked for about a half an hour to get to the driving range.

This was one of the most unenjoyable experiences for me. I was not prepared for what was about to happen. There were roughly fifty hounds at the driving range waiting for the celebrities. I didn't have enough sleeves in my binder and I was dragging around a 16x20 to get signed. It didn't work out well for me. Steven Stamkos was the first guy that I was able to get, but not before a bit of work. It is really cutthroat. I was holding out an 8x10 to get signing and someone would come by and put theirs right over mine. I was really close to hitting someone.

After Steven Stamkos, I spent a lot of time trying to get an autograph from Samuel L. Jackson, but to no avail. I did manage to get one more photo signed by Kevin Dillon. I was happy to get it signed as Jerry Ferrara had already signed it at the Wayne Gretzky tournament.

Finally I got Stephen Ames to sign a golf ball for me. It was really a poor experience for me. I guess I need to learn though. Next year I will be more organized and hopefully not need to carry around a 16x20.

Upon arrival back at the tournament course, I saw "Ponch" from CHIPS was there in his outfit. Eric Estrada was there to greet fans at the tournament. I grabbed a photo with him. He was a nice guy. He later signed a couple of pieces of photo paper for Avi.

Finally it was time for the tournament to start. After the success I had at the Gretzky tournament I knew that this part would be much better than the driving range. During the actual tournament everyone was spread out, which meant that all the hounds were spread out also.

I was finally able to get my first autograph from Samuel L. Jackson. He signed a Pulp Fiction photo for me. On a side note, he had a great drive off the tee. One of the longest I've seen for a celebrity.

I really didn't try all that hard at this tournament. Avi and I situated ourselves in between two of the greens and waited for golfers as they came by.

I was able to get a couple of photos signed by rocker Tom Cochrane. He was a really nice guy and a great signer also.

We also saw Fred Couples, 1992 Masters champion and winner of 15 PGA Tour championships.

Mike Weir, 2003 Masters winner and winner of 8 PGA Tour championships.

Camilo Villegas, winner of 8 professional tournaments including 3 on the PGA Tour, would go by also.

I didn't know ahead of time that there are a lot of golfers that don't sign golf balls. None of the above guys would. I should have printed some photos of the golfers. I guess I will know for next year. Another interesting thing about golfers is that they all carry their own markers. Stephen Ames, for example, signs all of his autographs in red.

After the golfers, I was able to grab my second autograph from Samuel L. Jackson.

I also had one of the guys get a photo of me with Mr. Jackson. It was impossible to ask him for a photo as there were still too many people around. I don't mind settling for this photo. You can at least tell that we are both in the picture. It is similar to my photo with Brett Hull from Collingwood.

Kevin Dillon also passed by our spot, but only signed a few autographs before going to the tee box. There was a girl standing near us who started saying, "Please Mr. Dillon. This is the third time. The third time I've missed you like this." He told her to come under the rope to the tee box. He signed for her and told her that he was sorry, but he tries to get everyone. She concluded with something along the lines of "you just made my year." The highlight of this whole situation was after she had said this, every started yelling "VICTORY" as a tribute to Kevin Dillon's character on Entourage, Johnny Drama, who played in a show called Viking Quest. Dillon raise his arm as he does on the show and smiled in acknowledgement.

After Kevin Dillon, Avi and I decided we would hit up the refreshment stand. We rested for a short while and then went to bug Marty Brodeur and Rick Nash.

As the day was winding to an end, I was able to get a photo with Stephen Ames. He was the nicest golfer that I met that day. All the rest seemed to hate meeting fans, even though it was a charity event.

While Avi waiting for Mike Weir, I decided I would catch Samuel L. Jackson one last time as he finished up on the 15th hole. He ended up signing for each person at the whole. This photo is probably the nicest out of the three and could even be frame-worthy.

That ended our tournament day. On the way out of the course we spotted Damon Allen and grabbed a quick photo with him.

What did I learn from this whole experience? Be organized. Be agressive during scrums. If you want to relax, you will meet all the people you want, but if you want to get all your things signed, you need to work hard.

Blast From The Past: Cheech and Chong

"Cheech and Chong are a comedy duo consisting of Richard "Cheech" Marin and Tommy Chong, who found a wide audience in the 1970s and 1980s for their stand-up routines, which were based on the hippie and free love era, and especially drug culture movements, most notably their love for cannabis.

Their early success culminated with the release of their first feature-length movie, Up in Smoke, in 1978. It became something of a cult classic.

In 1985 the duo released their album Get Out of My Room. Immediately following the release of the album, Cheech Marin separated himself from teh pair's drug-inspired act by working on a solo career. After their contentious parting in the 1980s, the duo had a less-than-stellar friendship.

On July 30, 2008, the team reunited to publicly announce thier fall comedy tour, titled "Cheech and Chong Light Up America/Canada". Ottawa was the first city worldwide on September 5, 2008.

The split between Cheech & Chong was particularly devastating to Chong. To him, Cheech Marin was 'closer than a wife. The only thing we didn't do was have sex." Of their split, he says, 'It was like a death in the family.' Chong was a recurring character and later a regular character as the hippie "Leo" during the second, third, fourth, seventh and eighth seasons of That '70s Show.

After he and Tommy went thier separate ways, Cheech starred in a number of films as a solo actor, most notably Born in East L.A., Tin Cup and Once Upon a Time in Mexico."

He also had a cameo as the father to Jorge Garcia's Hurley in the smash show Lost.

In my high school grad comments I wrote that one of my ambitions in life was to own two red bulldogs named Cheech and Chong. I kid you not. So, when I found out that the duo were going to be in Montreal for the Just for Laughs comedy tour, I was very excited to try and meet them.

After following Pamela Anderson to her hotel, we were fortunate enough to see Cheech arrive roughly a half an hour later. We called out to him to stop and sign, but he gave a quick look and walked into the hotel. Not a great start.

A while later, Tommy Chong returned for the evening. He was totally cool. He signed around 11 photos for Steve who knew that he was a racker. He then signed three photos for myself and stopped for a picture. He saw that he was the first signing the pictures, so he asked if Cheech was back yet. We told him that we was but that he didn't sign. Tommy said that it might have been because he was with his wife.

I must say that Tommy Chong was the guy we would end up seeing the most on the trip. The next day we say him heading out into old Montreal with his family to do some sightseeing.

Later that day, the two headed out. They each had seperate Escalades provided by the comedy festival. We were able to finally grab some autographs from Cheech. He was a pretty cool guy also when he wasn't with his wife.

I finished getting my photos signed by Cheech and he posed for a quick photo. I asked him what he thought about the ending of Lost. He said that he actually really enjoyed it.

Another blast from the past....Cheech and Chong.