So the "Meet the Phantoms" event was tonight, and BOY was it a mob
scene! I did get to get the team's signatures, though, which is good
because who knows if there'll be a Carnival this season to get
signatures at?

So... I got to see the players, welcome the new guys to Philly,
compliment Neil Little on a very articulate interview that he gave for
the Hockey News (more on that in a moment), and meet Jeff L, the
webmaster of the philaphans.com site. I'd call that a productive night, no?

Oh, and it turns out that Neil hasn't seen his interview in The Hockey
News yet. So tomorrow I'll be spending some time communing with the
color photocopier at work, so I can run off a copy of the article for
him. The man ought to have a copy of his own interview, after all! :o)

So at the end of the event, I was chatting with some other fans when
the time came for the players to leave. When they did, Mark and I both
saw the empty table full of player nameplates (little paper stand-up
thingies with the players' names on them). There was Neil's nameplate,
along with a bunch of others, just sitting there unattended. I thought,
"Well, if they're gonna just chuck these, I might as well go get
Neil's". Mark was one step ahead of me and picked it up for me.

Which would've been fine, except Neil came BACK to the table a minute
or two later, with a small fan and her mom in tow. Wouldn't you know
that they were looking for his nameplate? So I said, "Er, is this what
you were looking for?" and gave it back. Neil was all happy, thanked me
for giving it back, and the little girl was thrilled -- apparently
they'd asked him for his nameplate and he came back to sign it for her.
I apologized and said, "I had no idea anyone would come back for it".
TWICE he said, "We'll have to get something else for you". But that's
OK if he doesn't -- I wasn't about to contend with a little kid over
the nameplate. If he DOES remember and do something, I'll consider it a
pleasant surprise.

Oh, and LOL. There was a Flyers game from 1987 on TV last week. One of
our assistant coaches, Kjell Samuelsson, was on the Flyers team at the
time. I asked him, "Did you see the Flyers game last week? I saw you
playing and thought, "Aah, that's Kjell!' ". He laughed and answered,
"Did you see I had hair then?" LOL :o) as a matter of fact, I did, but
I wasn't gonna bring that up. Hee hee!

The home opener is Friday. I'm looking forward to it.