It's been a long time between shifts!

Long time readers and valuable followers of HockeyNation have made note of our extended absence from the digital archive of all things hockey.

As the 2009-10 season came to an end with the Hawks hoisting up Lord Stanley's Mug, there had been a sharp reduction in our efforts to chronicle those items of interest from the NHL and beyond.

Part of that was just the general weariness that occasionally comes with blogging on a regular basis, another part was an over commitment from your faithful correspondent to other adventures in blogging with other sites.

All of this was put into the blender this summer as we looked over our past blogging commitments and began the process of deciding which path to follow on the blogosphere.

With the extended break from the daily requirements of blogging, we ended some of those commitments, modified others and have reduced some of that load that resulted in our reduced output on this site.

Since HockeyNation was our very first entry into the world of blogging, it has always remained our favourite of the bunch, so with our moves in other locales, we feel that we can dedicate more time towards this entry into this portal to the blogosphere.

As hockey gears up for the 2010-11 season, we're hoping to rejuvenate our efforts, add some new features, eliminate those items that didn't seem to work last season and hopefully become a more reliable spot to find out items of interest from our favourite game.

As regular readers may have noticed we have redesigned our look for this season, adopting a new layout which we will tweak as we work with it to provide a more enjoyable read for those who stop by our little corner of the rink.

We begin our exploits this season with a re-introduction to our Pre-Game skate, a page with links to individual teams, offering up their home page, schedule, blog links, podcast options and other items of interest to fans of each of the league's 30 teams. It will always be found at the top of the right hand corner of the blog.

Our Daily headline feature begins anew today as well, it will highlight the main story of the day from hockey and will be found directly below the Pre Game Skate.

We have archived all of our features from the 2009-10 season as well, clearing up some space on the page and creating room for this years version of much of the same, from our Hired to be fired feature which tracks the happenings behind the benches and in the front office to the Trading block feature which will catalogue all of the trades during the course of the 2010-11 season.

As we go along in the season other items of note that are of interest on a season long basis will be found on the right hand column.

Thanks to those that dropped a note on the off season expressing their thoughts on the blog over the past few years and inquiring as to the return of current content. It's always nice to get some constructive criticism and/or complaints about things that may or not be working.

Part of the success and enjoyment of blogging is that contact between author and reader, feel free to drop a line either below each individual post or at HockeyNation001@yahoo.ca

If there are things that are working let us know, likewise if you have a thought on things that may not be interesting or working for you let us know about those as well. We don't guarantee that we'll change things up, but we certainly will listen and examine the options.

At any rate, that's enough of the housekeeping for now, the prospects are in the camps, the full training season is almost upon us and the regular season is but a few weeks away.

And with all of that cleared up, it's time for the Hockey Nation to hit the ice!


KP