The @NHL is using Twitter to immerse fans in the journey to Lord Stanley’s Cup both on and off the ice throughout the playoffs. Indeed, following playoff hashtags on Twitter is like listening to a radio announcer while simultaneously hearing from passionate fans during the game.

The @NHL has built lists for the teams, players, and has even deemed some fans official by adding the most enthusiastic ones to a team fan list like this one, which follows nearly 70 Coyote devotees. As Tweets fly from the rink, you can sit back and watch the stream from wherever you happen to be, and get the scoop on important calls or moments as they happen.

Here are some resources to get you closer to the action:

Stanley Cup Hashtag guide
--Use the first three letters of each team’s city to track a specific game in the series. For example, to represent the Boston vs. Montreal dialogue, use the hashtag #BosMtl

NHL Quick Lists
--NHL Teams
--NHL Players
--NHL Media
--Here’s a useful timeline by Sulia that shows top news from over 600 accounts.

News and pundits
--@ESPN_NHL
--@wyshynski
--@TSNBobMcKenzie
--@Real_ESPNLeBrun
--@DarrenDreger
--@OnFrozenBlog

The NBA playoffs are approaching. It's time to prepare for your daily fix of hoops news and grab your seat. Players across the league, from Dwyane Wade (@dwadeofficial) to Dwight Howard (@dwighthoward), and even Shaq (@the_real_shaq) connect with the outside world in Tweets, and in return for fans’ loyalty, teams share exclusive Twitter promotions and off-the-cuff insights.

In other words: if you're not already following your favorite team and sports news source on Twitter, you should be. Below are great basketball resources to get you in on the action.

Pick your team:

— Find your team in this @NBA list and follow along for exclusive insight and free stuff.
— About 200 NBA players are on Twitter. Here’s an easy list to search through and follow.
—Wear your colors by applying one of these cool NBA themed profile backgrounds.

Follow the pundits for opinionated coverage of the playoffs:

Follow your old-school favorites to see what they’re up to now:

Join in the madness:

Hashtags are used in Tweets as tags to track a conversation (learn more here). Search, follow and interact with the ones that interest you. Try #GoLakers, #BeatTheLakers or #playoffs for a general conversation around each game.

We first launched Trends as a useful way for people to find out what topics are being talked about around the world, right now. Early last year, we added Local Trends to make it easier to find more locally relevant topics in specific countries and metropolitan locations. Today, we’re adding Trends for more than 70 new cities and countries - bringing the total number of locations to more than 100.

You can browse these new locations by clicking “change” in the Trends sidebar on twitter.com. You’ll see and be able to select among a wide array of cities and countries, including Santiago, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, South Africa, Japan and many more. And, of course, you still have the option to see worldwide Trends.

If you’ve got questions or would like help, please check out our support article on Trends.

We’ve made it easier to find and follow Twitter accounts based on your interests. When you search for a topic, you can now discover accounts that are relevant to that particular subject. (Previously, you would have seen accounts that have the specific term in their name or username. ) Just click on the “people” section of the search results page or search from the “Who to follow” page.

This new approach helps you find the Twitter users that will best help you follow your interests. For example, if you’re interested in hip hop, chances are that you’d like to follow hip hop artists. Searching for “hip hop” now surfaces accounts like @common and @questlove. (Previously, we typically showed accounts that have “hip hop” in the name.)

Whether you’re an aspiring cupcake baker, a crafty person looking for new DIY projects or someone who likes to keep an eye out for a great travel deal, you’ll be able to quickly find and connect with useful accounts. You can search for general topics, like funny or sports, or be more specific – try Manchester United, Nascar or Formula One.

One more thing! Now, when you search on Twitter.com, you’ll see a tip from Twitter. This tip points you to a set of search operators and our advanced search page, which help you more quickly find what you’re looking for.