I'll probably end up doing some running around Newtown in the next few weeks.

Although I've had quite a few college varsity and club-level games on my officiating schedule so far this year, my schedule from December 7 to January 2 is totally empty. Part of this is the nature of college hockey scheduling: there aren't too many games between Thanksgiving and Christmas due to the holidays and exams at many schools.

This may give me the opportunity to actually begin a project I had thought about over the summer: trying to build "ultimate" playlists for a couple of different exercise activities. Over the summer I started thinking about what the ultimate cycling playlist might include-- probably lots of Kraftwerk stuff that got played on Versus during The Tour de France a couple of years ago.

My mind wandered to a similar but more intriguing project. I thought I might try to put together an ultimate hockey warmup playlist. This would include the best songs that get played during college and pro hockey warmup periods, and I would ask fellow officials as well as players for ideas. I could run to tunes like these. I haven't done anything on this project yet.

One guy who has done some work on a project like this is Jeff Perlman from ESPN. He just wrote an article called Run wild with the ultimate playlist which is his attempt to build the ultimate running playlist.

I think Perlman's list is a too rap heavy, but I enjoyed previewing the songs he chose on my iPhone using The iTunes WiFi Music Store. I think a couple of his ideas may make it on to my next running playlist, and I agree with him that nothing by Survivor is going to be part of my running soundtrack anytime soon.

If you have some ideas for songs for a hockey warmup playlist or a running playlist, feel free to comment here or just send me an email.