Once in a while, RinkAtlas discovers new rinks that never made it into our database of U.S. ice facilities. Today we discovered three rinks nearby in Philadelphia that don't appear in most rink directories:

• Scanlon Ice Rink
• Laura Sims Skate House
• Tarken Ice Rink

We found these rinks because of an announcement by The Philadelphia Flyers and The City of Philadelphia that The Ed Snyder Hockey Foundation will take over hockey programs at these rinks originally slated for closure due to anticipated city budget cuts.

The Ed Snyder Hockey Foundation is one of the things that makes The City of Philadelphia a great city. It helps underserved youth in this area learn how to play hockey while instilling life-enhancing values such as teamwork, positive self-esteem, the importance of hard work, and respect for themselves and their teammates.

It's hard to believe that RinkAtlas was down again on October 28 and 29, 2008. The server we run on, which is conservatively managed and sits in a Tier I hosting facility had it's second major hardware problem in less than four months.

It takes a bit of time to restore RinkAtlas because some of its functions depend upon PHP modules which are in a public code repository, but are not part of the default installation of PHP. We are documenting the restoration process more completely in case we ever need to use it again.

The server where RinkAtlas is hosted experienced a pretty serious hardware problem early on Sunday, July 6, 2008. The server was restored late last night, but some additional tweaking had to be done to the LAMP stack on the restored server.

Everything seems to be running well now. If you notice any issues that you'd like to report, please email me at daiello [at] rinkatlas.com.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

RinkAtlas now supports social bookmarking through our "Bookmark & Share" button on the toolbar. This feature allows you to bookmark rink locations in Digg, Del.icio.us, Facebook, MySpace, and about 30 other sites.

This feature is made possible through AddThis, a company that specializes in social network integration tools. AddThis is a local company in my area, and I've met with two of the company's executives in recent weeks. I like what they're doing, and I think it provides real value to RinkAtlas users.

The NCAA Men's Hockey Division I National Championship is taking place from April 10 - 12, 2008 at the Pepsi Center in Denver, CO.

For more information about the tournament, visit http://www.ncaa.com/icehockey-mens/.

The USA Hockey Youth National Championship for the 16 & Under and 18 & Under age groups is taking place from April 2 - 6, 2008 at the Amherst Pepsi Center in Williamsville, NY.

For more information about the tournament, visit http://www.usahockey.com/Tournament/TournamentHomePageEndUser.aspx?EventID=1856&Type=EV".

The USA Hockey Youth National Championship for the 12 & Under and 14 & Under age groups is taking place from April 2 - 6, 2008 at the Ice House Skating Rinks in Hackensack, NJ.

For more information about the tournament, visit http://www.usahockey.com/Tournament/TournamentHomePageEndUser.aspx?EventID=1857&Type=EV.

The USA Hockey Girls' National Championship is taking place from April 2 - 6, 2008 at the Ice Line in West Chester, PA.

For more information about the tournament, visit http://www.usahockey.com/Tournament/TournamentHomePageEndUser.aspx?EventID=1859&Type=EV.

The NCAA Men's Hockey Division I Tournament begins this weekend with Regional Tournaments in the following locations:

• Northeast Regional at DCU Center in Worcester, MA
• East Regional at the Times Union Center in Albany, NY
• Midwest Regional at the Kohl Center in Madison, WI
• West Regional at World Arena in Colorado Springs, CO

For more information on this round of the tournament, visit our friends at College Hockey News or US College Hockey Online.

The USA Hockey Women's National Championship is taking place from March 28 - 30, 2008 at the Ice Line in West Chester, PA.

For more information about the tournament, visit http://www.usahockey.com/Tournament/TournamentHomePageEndUser.aspx?EventID=1860&Type=EV.