Find your pants, lather on the sunscreen and prepare to crawl out of your mom's basement... It's time to party.

These Limited edition buttons and shirts are available through the FTF Store, all proceeds to SJSU

Today, Fear the Fin has announced that we will be teaming up with the San Jose Sharks, local businesses and hockey businesses in North America to raise money for San Jose State's Division II Men's Hockey Club. If you're a reader of this site, you know that Fear the Fin supports not only the Sharks, but San Jose hockey in general. For this year's Night at the Tank event, we're asking you to join us as we watch the San Jose State Spartans as they fight to take the Regional Crown against Colorado, UNLV, Northern Arizona, Denver, Utah, Colorado State and San Diego State at Sharks Ice in Fremont on February 25th starting at 12:15 PM. We'll also be watching the Sharks as they visit the Predators at 4:00 PM from Stanley's Restaurant inside the rink.

Tickets for entry are just $15. And aside from great hockey with great friends (while drinking a great amount of beer, if you are of age), we'll make showing up plenty worth your while.

For those of you who have attended an FTF Night before, you know that it's not complete without a raffle. We're pulling out all the stops for SJSU, and have a gaggle of prizes that are sure to get you excited for just $5 a ticket (or six for $20). A puck signed by Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Joe Pavelski? We have that, courtesy of the San Jose Sharks, who also provided a special edition All-Star puck graced with the image and signature of Logan Couture, a puck signed by FTF hero Jamie McGinn, and pucks signed by Brent Burns and Antti Niemi. World of Sports Memorabilia threw in their own signed merch, a beautiful framed photo of Ryane Clowe. If you're feeling nostalgic, maybe the signed Mike Ricci Bobblehead is up your alley.

Like looking stylish? The guys at Gongshow Gear donated a prize pack that will have you ready to wheel, snipe and party. And if you want to get on the ice and show off your skills, Easton Hockey is donating a top of the line Stealth S19 twig.

If going to a game is more your style, Fear the Fin is ponying up two tickets to the February 28th game against the Philadelphia Flyers against the glass. In the club section. On the attack twice side. No better than that, ladies and gentlemen. We're also bringing along some of our own swag, including shirts and hoodies. There will be some slick SJSU gear available to win as well.

Last but not least, many area businesses are throwing their hats into the charity game. We'll have gift certificates from The Brit, Duccommon's Sporting Goods, Flames, La Mar Cebicheria in San Francisco, Poor House Bistro, Stanley's Bar and Grill and Yuki Sushi. If your business would like to join in, we'd love to include you.

The raffle will be open from the start of the first game until the end of the third game, when we will announce the winners. Also, for you die-hard Finners, we'll be doing a podcast LIVE after the final game of the night where we'll interview some of the SJSU players, who will be circulating with the crowd.

All in all, it's going to be a fun night. If you caught the recent Budweiser commercial where fans flash-mobbed a beer league game, that's what we're going for. Only the quality of hockey will be much, much better. We're hoping 300 people show up for what's going to be a great time.

If we got you excited for some SJSU Hockey (and why wouldn't you be), pick up our newest items in the FTF store. A slick shirt, designed by our very own mymclife, says "I Love San Jose Hockey". Not only will you show the love on your chest, but all proceeds go to help SJSU. If you're the shirtless type, we also have buttons, although I'm not sure what you'll attach it to.

We hope to see FTF nation, and others, there in full force in their blue and gold.

Go Spartans!

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On behalf of myself, Matt, Ann, Ivan, Jon, and a new free agent acquisition we will be announcing later this week, we wanted to take the time to wish all of you very merry holiday season.

There's a lot of things to be thankful for with the Sharks on a four game winning streak, but most of all we want to take the time to thank you for being around with us this entire season. We've said it many times before but it bears repeating-- your passion for the team and the site makes every year totally worthwhile.

So after the presents have been unwrapped, holiday ham devoured, and eggnog downed at a feverish pace (don't drink it all at once!), give yourself a pat on the back for being completely awesome.

The best gift we could ever ask for is the one you give to us every single year-- the gift of friendship and community.

We'll see you tomorrow for the Sharks game against the Ducks.

Happy holidays everyone.

It is now the fourth year I've been managing editor of Fear The Fin, and each year it becomes easier to find things to be thankful for. I think back to all the time we've spent running the website, going to games, coming up with story ideas, interacting with readers, tweeting, blogging, facebooking, losing sleep in a frantic attempt to finish a story...sometimes it's hard, most of the times it's easy, and there are always days where it lies somewhere in between.

But when I think back to why it is myself and our wonderful staff here dedicate so much time to this little obsession of ours, it's easy to figure out why we keep coming back every single season.

Everything starts and ends with you.

The passion of this community is unparalleled. The discussions that go on are a funny and insightful package all wrapped into one. Sure we may have our disagreements from time to time, but that keeps us all on our toes. Most importantly, that's what makes us a family. A family of individuals who share the same love but approach it in different ways, a family that holds a bond that can transcend minor disagreements and come out of it stronger as we keep a pulse on the team we bleed for.

We won't be eating Thanksgiving dinner together this year, and even if we did, we'd probably drink all your wine and hog all the gravy. You'd justifiably throw us out, we'd go to 7-11 and pick up a taquito, and then we'd forget about it the next day and come back as a stronger community. Because that's what we've always done, and what this community will always do-- grow and progress and evolve into something better and better every single day. We'll also never let a good taquito go to waste, especially if you can get like seven of them for under a buck.

Your passion fuels ours. Your ability to make us think in different ways, to show us different things, and to motivate us to be the best we can be is the one thing that has kept this site alive and active during the last four years.

You are the thread that binds us together. You are our family.

Happy Thanksgiving, Fear The Fin. Have an excellent holiday.

TiqIQ is a company that helps you to find the best tickets available for professional sporting events. The site aggregates tickets available online from major vendors like Stub Hub, Ticket Master, and EBay, allowing their customers to compare the price of tickets and see the trends in pricing that is occurring over past week and month.

Along with other SB Nation hockey sites, Fear The Fin has recently been given an opportunity to give away free tickets to a Sharks game later this year. The terms of the contest are simple-- guess which Sharks player will lead the team in penalty minutes at the end of November and how many penalty minutes that player will have. This includes PIM's already accrued. Whichever reader guesses correctly will win a pair of tickets to a Sharks home game in December or January.

In order to enter you will need a Twitter account. I understand not all of you have an account, and when we've run contests like this in the past, that has been a point you have raised. My suggestion to you would be to sign up for Twitter (it takes five minutes) and take advantage of the opportunity because there's no way around it.

Here are the terms of the contest:

The winning entry

The last day to enter is on October 31s, but you can get started now-- users can guess as many times as they want throughout the course of the month. Obviously this has some constraints (I don't want a list of every player on the team with PIM's ranging from 2 to 200 flooding my inbox today), but three to five guesses a day should be fine and ensure that you have a good chance of winning. The contest isn't a "Price Is Right" format-- you have to nail it exactly in order to win tickets. So guess as often as you can without inviting the wrath of my clumsy keyboard fingers.

In the event of a tie, the person who first guessed correctly in the timeline will win.

To summarize:

• This contest is for Twitter users only. If you do not have or do not want a Twitter account, you cannot win tickets.
• Follow @TiqIQ on Twitter.
• Tweet to @fearthefin with the player's name, # of PIM's, and include the hashtag #TakeASeat. An example of the format can be found above. You are guessing how many PIM's that player will rack up by the end of November, including however many the player has now, and that player must lead the team at the end of the month. Players such as Brad Winchester and Ryane Clowe are probably your best bets here.
  
• Remember that you are guessing who will lead the team in PIM's by the end of November.
• Guess as many times as you want, but please cap it at five or so per day. Each guess needs to be made in separate tweets. No more entries will be accepted after October 31st.
• We will remind you of this contest again in the last week of October in case it slips your mind.
• If you are interested in using TiqIQ to purchase Sharks Tickets, more information can be found here.

Good luck!

Fantasies are a funny thing. When I was a wee little lad, I would fantasize about playing professional hockey and leading my team to the Stanley Cup. Roofed shots, cross crease passes, backhanders that found twine. It was visceral and it was real, it was going to happen no matter what. Now I just fantasize about maybe eating a good meal on Friday night, getting away with going 71 in a 65, and having enough players on my fantasy team who do all the things I knew I was going to do when I grew up to be 23 years old.

I also play a lot of RPG's . As a level 30 soldier, I can assure you that the Reaper threat will be extinguished by next March and dragons will be slain this holiday season. I'm a jack of all trades really.

At any rate, this season FTF will have four fantasy hockey leagues available for everyone to join. With competition expected to be fierce, and snack cake munching expected to reach historic levels once the season gets underway, make sure to secure your spot soon. I finished a woeful 13th last season in "FTF Invitational" after finishing 3rd the year before, so if you're looking for some easy wins, make sure to join that one. If you're interested in competing against a member of the Russian Mafia, join "FTF Invitational 2" where Ivan will be ruling with an iron fist as commissioner. And if you're looking to show your appreciation for all the hard work our site moderators put in, make sure to join either "Our Stalock" or the "Deke Squad" league and spew out some family friendly trash talk to ZeroIndulgence and idunno723.

The choice is yours, but choose wisely-- in the interest of making sure everyone gets an opportunity to play this season, please sign up for just one league this season. We want everyone to get a chance to compete with members of the FTF community.

We will be using Yahoo! again this year. Go to this page and enter in the League ID and password you see below. It should be on the left hand side of your screen.

FTF Invitational
League ID: 42362
Password: hamburgers

FTF Invitational 2
League ID: 42736
Password: imisswallin

Our Stalock (an FTF Production)
League ID: 42743
Password: whoartingoal

FTF Deke Squad
League ID: 42716
Password: awkpatty

Have fun, and most importantly, draft Rob Blake, Brian Rafalski, and Mark Recchi in the first round, especially if you're in "FTF Invitational." All Cup winners, and magnificent players who should put up some big points this season.

[Editor's Note]: If all the spots are taken in either of these Leagues when you try to join, let us know in the comments. We will either open up another league or elect a community member to act as Commissioner.

As faithful FTF readers may notice, I haven't written much this summer. With many things occupying my daily schedule, not the least of which is the birth of our new son last week, I had to step away from blogging.

As I reevaluated my time commitments for the upcoming season, I realized I wouldn't have the time it takes to be a regular contributor here. So in a way, this is my "retirement" piece. 

And with that, I'd like to use this chance to thank you all for putting up with me during the couple of seasons I've been contributing here. I don't always write using correct English. I have Russian agenda.  But this community has been terrific and the only reason why I was here to begin with. You always read our nonsense. But even better - you're always willing to agree or disagree with our view and leave a multitude of comments. Reading your responses on this blog has been just as fun as writing for it. I've also met many of you in real life at FTF Night at the Tank, at Sharks games, and at team practices.. Fear the Fin became my hockey family. Thank you for that! 

And special thanks goes to the founders of this blog and our spiritual leaders, Jason Plank and Matthew Taylor, for allowing me to be a part of the FTF crew. Two of the coolest guys I've met in my life. 

Now that we have this out of the way, let me get into the meat of what's coming up ahead. August is still the slowest sports month of the year, but it's almost over. The camp will be here before we know it.

Those of you who go to Captain's Ice know that half the team is already here and skating. I attended the skate on Tuesday. On the ice, among others, were Brent Burns, Dan Boyle, Joe Thornton, Jason Demers, Antti Niemi, Patrick Marleau and Frazer McLaren. More are arriving in the next couple of weeks. 

Don't know about you, but I'm counting the days till the hockey is back. As I think about the upcoming season, here are my top eight reasons why I am excited about it and why this may be the greatest season in team's history. 

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Fear The Fin is proud to announce that the long-awaited and much-anticipated iPhone app is now available to download in the Apple App Store. The app, which will allow you to stay connected to Fear The Fin and 300+ SB Nation blogs throughout the day, will be free of charge and available to all iPhone owners. Current user names and passwords will allow you to log in to the app as you would from a computer.

The SBN iPhone app will allow users to:

* Get breaking news as it happens.

* Customize your news with your favorite teams (Ducks), sports (badminton) and blogs (Winging It In Motown)

* Receive up to the minute updates to the stories you choose to follow on SBNation.com, regional sites, Baseball Nation, and MMA Nation

* Read and reply to comments.

Although "z'ing" through comments and automatic page updates will not be available at launch, SBN will be adding those functions in the near future. It is one of the team's biggest priorities. Furthermore, an app for the Android will be launched before the end of 2011.

For a wonderful video demo on how the app works, please click here.

According to FTF's market research team, bathroom breaks at work are expected to increase 300% for all iPhone users in the greater Bay Area during the 2011-2012 season, with family reunions and romantic dinners also seeing a bump in bathroom activity. "Number two" is projected to be the most commonly used bowel movement in the coming weeks, as local supermarkets and grocers struggle to meet the increased demand for Raisin Bran and other fiber-based forms of nourishment.

Sources close to the Apple store state that Steve Jobs' decision to resign as CEO of Apple late Wednesday afternoon was due in part to the awesomeness of the new SBN app.

"Steve always said he would like to go out on top, retire when all of his goals were achieved," John Doe told Fear The Fin during a high-stakes game of unverified and non-existent sourcing used to beef up an articles word count. "This new SBN app brought his career at Apple full circle, put the cherry on top so to speak. He couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out."

The app can be downloaded by going to the App Store and searching "SB Nation", or by going here and clicking "Download Now." The app is free for all users.

Any questions, feedback, or comments about the app can be directed towards support@sbnation.com.

Enjoy.

The nominations for Fanpost and Photoshop of the Year can be found after the jump.

Survey can be found here.

Enjoy.

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