There’s been a whole bunch of discussion on this topic in the last couple of years, and the NHL board of governors is reportedly exploring ways to eliminate dangerous hits from the game.

The silence around here is deafening, so here’s an easy one for me to write: a synopsis of the podcasts I frequently listen to.

Hurricanes this Week

Not so much of a podcast as a tape delay of Pat Siedlecki’s weekly radio show on The Lounge. Pat is the play-by-play voice of the Lethbridge Hurricanes, and as a season ticket holder and member of the CanesCast crew, I like keeping up with the news and analysis presented on the show.

Lullabot Podcast

This applies to both the full-on podcast as well as the short form Drupal Voices. If you are a Drupal developer or site builder and do not listen to this podcast, you are missing out, because these guys know their stuff.

MacBreak Weekly

I haven’t listened to this one so much since Merlin Mann’s participating tailed off.

I expect that I will be ranting a lot in the next two months about DrupalCon SF, but it’s worth mentioning that I will be attending another event before DrupalCon: COSSFest, the Calgary Open Source Software Festival.

From their own web site:

COSSFEST is a two day event featuring multiple speaking tracks and workshops demonstrating the use of Open Source to lower costs, and increase the capabilities and competitiveness of your business. COSSFEST brings together leaders in the technology industry, technology professionals, business professionals, and computer enthusiasts to share the latest news and Open Source know-how.

Not only am I attending COSSFest this year, but I will also be presenting, and naturally my topic is Drupal-related.

Tuesday marks the beginning of the 2010 men’s Olympic hockey tournament in Vancouver, the fourth Olympics to include NHL players. The NHL’s current collective bargaining agreement expires in September 2011[^1], so we do not have any assurances that NHL players will be participating in the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia.

Gary Bettman and the NHL owners seem lukewarm at best with regard to shutting down the league for two weeks of the season to send players to future Olympics[^2]. I have heard suggestions that the condensed NHL schedule in Olympic years is to blame for increased numbers of injuries; clearly a reason for NHL owners to oppose Olympic involvement. NHLPA membership, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly in favour of continued involvement in the Olympic games.

We just got confirmation this week that a number of us from the U of L web team will be making the trip to San Francisco for DrupalCon in April.

My friends Jeddy and Windy at Lethbridge Web Design are hosting the fifth Lethbridge Tweet-Up tomorrow night at my favourite watering hole, The Wooden Kilt. These guys are great at coming up with themes for the Tweet-Ups, and this one supports the worthy cause of Haitian earthquake relief.