Whale of a time

By Commonkid
Hockey Hounds Universe correspondent

For those who don't know this, the Whale Bowl was a series of games lasting over a week, played outdoors at Rentschler Field in East Hartford, Conn. It started with college and high school games, but the two big games were both on Saturday, Feb. 19.

The first game featured the Boston Bruins Alumni vs. Hartford Whalers Alumni. Joining them were the Hanson Brothers from the hockey cult classic Slap Shot. The alumni game was followed by the Connecticut Whale meeting the Providence Bruins in an American Hockey League game.

The hounding started Friday afternoon at the hotel where many of the players were staying for the weekend. First one I saw was Derek Sanderson, who asked for directions to the parking garage. We ran down to the walk-in entrance, getting him to sign before he got on the elevator. This worked for Brad Park and Reggie Lemelin as well.

The hotel, however, wouldn't let us wait inside. It was good luck that the weather was not all that bad, about 40 degrees out during the day.

On Saturday, we got to the hotel around 9 a.m. and some players were there already. The weather turned nasty, however, and it didn't get over 15 degrees with wind gusts up to 40 knots. For three of the dealers, this was too much. They paid for a room so they could wait inside. This turned into waste of money as security relented and let us all in about 30 minutes later.

Even at the game, it was good luck to get autos, as you could go out between the games and get the alumni as they left. Only four people were out there.

For the two-day total, I scored 117 cards, 28 8x10s and 16 pucks. I'm hoping they do this next year as well.

Besides Hall of Famer Brian Leetch, shown above, others signers included:

Whalers legend Ray Neufeld; and

Bruins legend Derek Sanderson.