Barrasso/Francis Not so bad

So I've been doing autographs for about only 3 years now and I hear a lot of who's a bad signer, who's a grumpy signer, and who's down right rude. With the Hurricanes in town, I heard a lot that Tom Barrasso and Ron Francis were a$$e$ and if they do sign they are very rude about it. Well I have to say, Francis was not very accomodating, but signed while running to the cab after practice. The whole trip though, he was constantly on the phone. Whether that was a way to keep hounds out of the way or something, it sure worked. But even then, he still denied when not on the phone and I have to say, I got really lucky.

With Tom Barrasso, I was sort of intimedated to even ask after hearing all the bad stories with him. Through the 2 days they were in town, I was watching how he reacted to people asking him for autos. Sometimes he denied and when he did sign, it was a sign and run type deal. Since the Hurricanes arrived in Los Angeles an extra day, they had practice at the King's training center. After practice Barrasso was hanging outside waiting for a cab. I took my time and then asked for an autograph on the card pictured below. I had his card ready on top of other player cards and he grabbed my whole stack. He signed my card and actually moved it to sign more but I only had one. I was shocked!!! I heard he only was a 1per. Some kid came after me and Barrasso signed 4 cards for him and even talked to us. Man, I was either lucky or he was just enjoying the weather. After he signed, we talked about how did a private signing for a company and all the interesting items that were sent in. All in all, I probably spoke to him for about 5 minutes.