In response to some requests here is a shorter version of yesterday's intro to the new Pension Plan Puppets. As always, there are links at the bottom.

If you have questions or trouble with the new system, post a comment in this thread and myself or one of the team (lovitt, sixfoot6 or odacrem) will try to point you in the right direction. We still consider this a beta platform, so don't be surprised if you find a few bugs or if everything isn't exactly right yet. We hope you'll take the time to report any problems you encounter at bugreport@sbnation.com. We'll be continuing to make changes and improving things.

SB Nation Network Accounts - the Big Change

You'll now have one username across all SB Nation blogs. You can join new ones as long as you abide by the community rules which basically boil down to: Don't be stupid, don't flame, cheer on the home team, and don't be shocked if you are banned for trolling. All of your comments and writings across the network will be compiled in your new profile. To get started, click here to claim your old blog accounts and create a new SB Nation network account.

FanPosts (the Section Formerly Known as Diaries)

Thank God they aren't diaries anymore. Take a look at our full guide to writing FanPosts on the new platform. Basically, this is where you can contribute a longer opinion on anything Leafs/NHL related.

Visual Redesign

We've adopted a fixed-width layout optimized for the 1024 x 768 resolution used by the majority of Pension Plan Puppets and SB Nation network users. Like everything else, SB Nation wants to hear your opinions/thoughts/suggestions.

Search

It's much improved but still being improved upon.

What's New

Schedule, Scores, Stats and Roster

Come next season you'll see the array of new features here.

Recommending FanPosts

If a FanPost is great you can recommend it. Lots of recs lands a FanPost on the recommended list. Think of it like gold stars.

Auto-refreshing Comments

You no longer need to refresh the page to see new comments. The shortcuts can be found above the comments.

Recommending Comments

Recommend great comments just like FanPosts

Flagging Comments

To help the moderators on a site, we've built-in tools that let you flag comments that are spam, trolling or just plain inappropriate. Only moderators can see those flags.

FanShots

We've got you covered: FanShots let you share YouTube videos, Flickr or PhotoBucket photos, quotes from articles, portions of chat transcripts, top 5 lists and simple links. If it's a video or image we'll put a thumbnail on the homepage when you post it.

Archives

It's much easier to find that post about a certain deadline trade or prospect retro feature. You can browse by year and month.

Avatars

Upload an image so folks can see your custom avatar on your profile, your FanPosts, and all your comments.

Network Profiles

Now that we have unified SB Nation network accounts, your profile will be your central hub for all of your activity on any blogs where you are a member.

Network bar

The top bar stays with you on all SB Nation blogs. It's a quick way to login and logout and navigate the network.

There are plenty more small changes and additions we've made, so please take a careful look around and explore this new system. We appreciate your patience and hope you'll help us improve the new platform for this and all the other SB Nation blogs.

Ok, hopefully that was short but still captured the gist of things. While the new site is awesome it is still in the process of development so send any thoughts/bugs/suggestions along. I've also added a Google Reader Widget to the right hand side so that you can click on any of the general NHL/other team news that is posted. Now, onto the links:

  • Loser Domi catches up with Carlo Colaiacovo and Ian White. Let's get dangerous.
  • The Pensblog dumps the photoshops they didn't have a chance to use during the Flyers' series.
  • Steve looks at Howard Berger's annual draft article and unveils the canards within his arguments.
  • Toronto Star's High School Rugby Top 10 has my former school ranked and it's higher than the duelling NAMBLA outposts that are UCC and SAC./