By Kevin Lee
We here at Bonk's Mullet always strive to bring you the most relevant and in depth news when it comes to the Ottawa Senators. Other blogs bring you the same old boring stats when it comes to analyzing the roster. We decided to analyze a completely missed stat, their autographs. Handwriting tells you a lot about a player and we've ranked the entire roster from worst to best.
22. Cody Ceci
Ceci may be ranked last when it comes to his autograph, but it really shows his hockey smarts. If you knew you were going to become a professional sports player and eventually need to sign thousands of autographs between hockey card companies, memorabilia companies, for charity, for your own hockey team, and for the fans, would you not want to make it as easy on yourself as possible? Well Ceci seemed to realise his initials were C.C. and took full advantage when creating his signature.
I'm still not completely sure what Borowiecki's signature actually is. Presumably as a child he could barely spell/pronounce his own last name and so when learning to write it in cursive just added a bunch of loops when told to write out his name. Apparently he didn't change a thing.
Organized mess is probably the best way to describe Chiasson's signature. I'm sure there's an "A" and a "C" in there somewhere. One thing I'll give him credit for though is when an autograph hound looking to make a profit asks for his autograph, he becomes an instant troll.
19. Jean-Gabriel Pageau
Pageau's signature looks like he decided he wanted to draw as many straight lines as he could fit in.
18. Colin Greening
I feel like Greening's signature is too smart for most of us, some fancy Cornell cursive or something.
17. Bobby Ryan
Not sure if the two big ovals are supposed to represent the "B", but there's no way looking at his signature that I see a "Bobby" or "Ryan". He might be limited by the fact he does sign left handed.
16. Erik Karlsson
Karlsson may be silky smooth on the ice, but his handwriting is anything but. His signature may be the messiest out there. Like Ryan, he also signs left handed, so there seems to be a trend there.
15. Milan Michalek
As pointed out by Capital Gains, Michalek's signature looks like a roller coaster.
14. Jared Cowen
I do appreciate Cowen using the "C" as a container for the "owen", so points for that.
13. Andrew Hammond
You can tell Hammond is a journeyman player from his autograph. A nice clean "A" followed by a legible "H". Clean and simple from not having to sign too many autographs in his career so far.
12. Curtis Lazar
Definitely a rookie signature. Like Hammond's plain and simple, but legible. Really missed an opportunity to include a laser beam drawing in his signature somewhere.
11. Marc Methot
Honestly, his signature makes no sense. The only reason that I put him higher in the rankings is the fact he can consistently sign that mess of a signature over and over again and it coming out looking exactly the same.
10. Craig Anderson
There's nothing special about Anderson's signature, but it is pretty much what you expect your standard autograph to look like. So only fair that he slots right in the middle of the rankings.
9. Mark Stone
I give Stone credit for the creativity in combining the letters of his last name to form his signature.
8. Zack Smith
I don't know what it is, but Smith's signature has always stood out to me. Maybe it's because the "Z" and "S" look the same.
7. Mika Zibanejad
Got to appreciate the "M" in Zibby's signature. Have to wonder if he signs differently as a DJ.
6. Kyle Turris
An extremely basic signature, but that's what makes it stand out. Got to love the fact that Turris managed to incorporate the pound symbol.
5. Chris Phillips
Just a nice stay at home steady signature. So consistent every time. A sign of a true veteran.
4. Patrick Wiercioch
Honestly, the reason Wiercioch comes so high is that besides his signature, his personalization text he writes out has the neatest handwriting from any hockey player I've ever seen.
3. Chris Neil
Like Phillips, another clean and consistent signature. Every single Neil signature you look at, whether it be from a couple years ago,or the present will always looks the same.
2. Mike Hoffman
Just like his game, Hoffman's got an underrated signature, there is just so much going on in his. Will be interesting now that he's in the NHL whether or not he begins to shorten it.
1. Clarke MacArthur
Now that is just a beautiful signature, from the large number of characters, to the inclusion of the "Mac". In fact it's so good that MacArthur signs his own pictures in his own household!
