A few days ago my friend Matt Leaf from USA Hockey suggested that RinkAtlas needed additional search capabilities for times when our customers didn't know the name of the rink they were trying to locate.

I know that when I played youth hockey years ago we had this problem at least once. My team scheduled a trip to Boston and played a series of games at the rink now known as Matthews Arena, where Northeastern University plays.

In those days the arena was generally known as Boston Arena, but was also referred to by some people as "The Old Boston Garden", since it was the original home of the Boston Bruins and the Boston Celtics.

I don't think the Internet, as we know it today, existed back then. However, I can see that was a case where we would have needed a location-based search capability rather than a rink name-based search.

Here are the features I added to the RinkAtlas search tool:

• Search by City and State: Now if you type "Boston, MA" or "Philadelphia PA", you'll get a list of all of the rinks in the RinkAtlas database with addresses in that city.
• Search by Five Digit Zip Code: If you type "12180" (the main five digit Zip Code for Troy, NY), or some other Zip Code, you'll get a list of rinks in the RinkAtlas database that are physically located within that Zip Code.
• Search by State Abbreviation: If you type a two letter state abbreviation, you'll get a list of all of the rinks located in that state. That's potentially hundreds of rinks in states like Massachusetts, Michigan, and Minnesota, but might make sense for some of the states where there are few indoor ice facilities.

One of the keys to making RinkAtlas.com the most popular rink directions website is to make it easier for webmasters operating hockey-related sites to provide maps and directions on their own websites. Over the past few days, I've built two widgets that do just that:

RinkAtlas Rink Information Widget

The RinkAtlas Rink Information Widget is the size of an IAB Vertical Rectangle ad unit (240 x 400). It lets you display a location map, the name, address, and telephone number for a pre-selected rink. In the lower left corner of the widget is a "Get Directions" button. If the Get Directions button is clicked, a new window is opened to the page on RinkAtlas corresponding to the selected rink. Door-to-door directions can be obtained from there.

You specify the rink to be displayed by the Rink Information Widget by inserting the Global Unique Identifier (guid) parameter in the widget configuration screen on the Widgetbox website. The guid for any rink in the RinkAtlas database can be found by looking at the URL produced by the "Link to this Page" button on the RinkAtlas toolbar.

The RinkAtlas Rink Information Widget is intended to be used on team information pages within hockey league or hockey news-related websites. It can also be used on a team's own website, or the website of a college sports information department.

RinkAtlas Rink Search Widget

The RinkAtlas Rink Search Widget is the size of an IAB Small Rectangle ad unit (180 x 150). It provides a text field and a "Search for Rink" button. If the Search for Rink button is clicked, a new window is opened to RinkAtlas and a search is performed using the contents of the text field as the search paramters.

The Rink Search Widget is perfect for inclusion on the sidebar of any hockey-related website or blog, particularly since this widget is the same size as many ads that appear in the sidebars of websites.

We believe that these widgets will meet the needs of most of the webmasters of hockey-related websites. However, we realize that some sites may have special needs or may want to integrate even more deeply with RinkAtlas. If your RinkAtlas integration plans go beyond what you can do with our widgets, contact Dave Aiello at daiello [at] rinkatlas.com.

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.