What the Puck?

I was hoping to be able to get this posted the other day, but I had to spend the last two days in Chicago for work. Anyway, I was looking for something in the closet and came across a shoe box full of hockey pucks. Nothing out of the ordinary, as I put them there a while back when I packed up the 'hockey' shelf in my bedroom. 

What I completely forgot about however, was the fact that a bunch of these pucks happened to be autographed. Altogether, I ended up finding 11 different signed pucks, and they all have one thing in common. The autographs are all from members of the Red Wings '97 Stanley Cup Championship team. 

If you can't already tell, the first one is signed by goalie Chris Osgood. He was the go-to-guy during the 96-97 regular season, but ended up backing up Mike Vernon throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs. 

Vernon signed this one. He backstopped the Wings all the way to the Cup in 1997 and brought home the Conn Smythe trophy to prove it. He finished the playoffs with a record of 16-4 with one shutout. 

This one is signed by Darren McCarty, a member of the Grind Line and the scorer of the Cup clinching goal during the second period of Game 4 against the Flyers. That goal is one of the most spectacular ones I've seen, even ignoring the fact that it was the winning goal. 

This one is signed by Kirk Maltby, another member of the famous Grind Line. He appeared in 20 playoff games during the '97 Cup run, notching five goals and two assists. 

This puck is signed by defenseman Mathieu Dandenault. He played quite a bit during the 96-97 season, but did not make an appearance during the playoffs. This is one of the nicer autos of the bunch. 

This next one is signed by goaltender Kevin Hodson. He was the third string goalie behind Osgood and Vernon, appearing in only six games during the 96-97 season and none during the playoffs.

This one is signed by Doug Brown. He played 49 games during the season and also made appearances in 14 playoffs games that season notching three goals and three assists.

This one is signed by a member of the famous Russian Five, Slava Kozlov. He appeared in 20 playoff games, putting up eight goals and five assists. He's got and interesting looking signature for sure. 

This one is signed by another guy who was part of the team, but did not actually play during the playoff run. That guy would be Mike Knuble. He played in nine games during the regular season, scoring only one goal.

This puck is signed by defenseman and current Red Wings color analyst Larry Murphy. Murphy came to the Wings at the deadline that year and chipped in two goals and nine assists during the playoff run. 

This puck is signed by one of the bigger names from that team, Sergei Fedorov, another member of the Russian Five. He notched 20 points in 20 games, eight goals and twelve assists in the playoffs. 

So there you have it, 11 pucks signed by members of the '97 Cup champions, pretty cool if you ask me. I haven't decided what I want to do with these yet though. I'm thinking about building some kind of puck display shelf for them.