Barrels of new fun at SBN Hockey

Great new developments underway for Lighthouse Hockey and SBN hockey blogs in general. For starters, as you may know, James Mirtle's move here as From The Rink includes his taking the role of Professor Emeritus of Hockey Blogs -- or something like that. He's been busy recruiting (bribes highly encouraged) bloggers to fill out the SBN lineup to cover all 29 NHL teams plus the Rangers. Look for the lineup to be up to 20 teams in the very near future.

The latest addition to go online is In Lou We Trust, the Devils blog that John Fischer has moved over from Blogger. Stop by and tell our Patrick Atlantic brethren hello, and wish him a loss on Friday. Also, the Blackhawks blog Second City Hockey, which had gone a bit underserved, is now newly staffed and re-energized. There is no truth to the rumor that they kick puppies over there.

But if you're visiting to feed your Islanders fix, know that this site isn't just for me to bloviate -- it's here because SBN offers a great forum and user interface to make it easy for all kinds of fans and readers to take part. I know we have plenty of lurkers out there -- don't be afraid to join in, drop your two cents in comments, post FanShots of your favorite memorobilia/jersey/strange idol to John Tonelli, and expound on your theories in FanPosts. Once you have a SBN username (which takes all of two seconds), you can also join great blogs for all your other favorite sports teams (which also takes 2 seconds).

Anyway, the rather incredible SBN IT team has rolled out some new data integration features for Lighthouse Hockey -- and all SBN hockey blogs. A lot of this stuff makes it easier for you -- the Islanders fan -- to take part, post your own Islanders thoughts and theories in FanShots and FanPots, and join in the general tomfoolery here.

The following SBN features make that eeaaasy:

New Feature #1 - Team Pages

You'll see in our menu here an "Islanders" button. Each "team page" now includes all posts associated with a certain team, the team news and the next game. Also, anytime you click the name of another team on the Schedule -- another menu item above -- you'll find a page for them too. So when you click on another team's name in the schedule, you'll find everything we have written about them here. If there's a red star next to the team name, we also have an SBN blog for that team. Of course, this works best if, when you're creating a FanPost or FanShot, you associate the relevant teams with your post. (You'll see it in the Create post interface.) So for example, since we've played them twice, here's the Rangers page.

New Features #2 & #3 - Team Roster and Player pages

Also in the menu above, you now have instant access to the current team roster, with listing of bio stats on each player. Better yet, each player name links to a new Player page, which has current stats, basic bio info -- plus a link to all the content from Lighthouse Hockey associated with that particular player. Again, this works best if you, when you're creating a FanPost or FanShot, associate the relevant player(s) with your post. For example, here's the player page for Doug Weight, where you can find his current stats and all Lighthouse Hockey content associated with him.

Just like team pages, we now also have pages for every other player in the league. Not much there yet, but as posts are tagged with the relevant players from other teams, we'll have pages like this with links to associated content at Lighthouse Hockey. So for example, Martin Biron's page shows related content from this blog.

Note that player pages will be linked at the end of any stories that you attach them to as well.

New Feature #4 - Team Stats

Pretty self-explanatory, but again the player names on the stats page link to their player pages.

New Feature #5 - Team News

This also has third-party SportsNetwork feeds. So you can come to Lighthouse Hockey for regular snarky commentary, then get the "objective" game preview/recap here as well.

New Feature #6 - Team Schedule and Scores

Finally, the entire season schedule and results are at the Schedule page in the top menu, so if you click on any game you'll see all of the stories, FanShots, and FanPosts associated with the game. For example, everything associated with the last win over Ottawa (both Lighthouse Hockey stuff and SportsNetwork) is accessible here.

You'll also see red stars beside some team names. These denote fellow SBN blogs. Once Professor Mirtle is done they will all have stars, and on your deathbed you will receive total consciousness. "So I figure, I got that goin' for me ... which is nice."

Not New, But Do Try It Feature #7 - FanPosts

This is actually an old one, but one thus far underused at the new Lighthouse Hockey: If you click through to the FanPosts page, you can look at them like a message board so you can see which are the most popular and which have been most recently active beyond those that are on the front page. This will help particularly once more are being posted.

If you've made it this far, do participate! Believe it or not, I came here not just to hear myself think, but because I saw through my other favorite team blogs what a great interactive format SBN offers. The game threads alone can be a fun, instantly updated circus for fans from around the globe to chime in during the game.

There is a Phase III that is on the way -- this is just the baseline sports data that SBN is integrating right now. Across all sports we plan to expand our offerings - especially as it relates to player stats, stats leaders, etc.

Finally, a big thank you to Trei and his team, who make this incredible forum so smooth and fun to use.