Years ago when I started really started to pay attention to hockey and the Maple Leafs, I found it helpful to import the seasons schedule into my calendar. That way I could better keep track of when the next game was, what time it was at and who they are playing. It was pretty simple back then too.  Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment even made the schedule available in spreadsheet format.  So all it took was a little Excel magic and presto, I had a copy of the schedule in my calendar. 

Things sure have changed over the year.  The schedule is still posted on their site, but it's no longer in spreadsheet format.  I have to rip it off the web site, remove the formatting and then get started on fixing the layout and format so that it can be successfully imported.  Of course, it would be easier if Outlook actually generated an error message when it fails to import.  What can you do, eh? At least MLSE aren't using that awful Outlook Calendar import service from a couple years ago! Man, did that ever suck. So, I'm posting this here so that anyone else who might be interested can benefit from the work I did on setting up this schedule and following along from their Outlook Calendar. I'm sure you can import this into other applications like Lotus Notes or what have you.  But I don't use those, so I can't provide instructions on how to do that.

The first thing you need is the file attached to this post. (Look for the download link at the very bottom of this post)  It's just an Excel 2003 spreadsheet that contains the 2007-2008 regular season schedule. Once you've downloaded that to your machine, you'll need to head over to Outlook.  Click File / Import and Export and select Import from another program or file and click Next. Select Excel 97-2003 from the file type window.  If you don't see this listed, you'll have to run through the add / remove for Outlook and add in the file convertors.  Or, you can export the document from Excel to CSV and pick CSV from the file type list. Once you've got the type selected, click Next. Browse to the file you downloaded and select it. You can leave Outlook to replace duplicates.  This doesn't matter, unless you've already gone and imported this schedule. Now click Next.  In the Destination Folder window, scroll up or down until you find Calendar under Personal Folders and select it. This can be a little different if you're using Exchange as a backend.  If that's the case, you should still see Calendar, it would just be under your Exchange Mailbox folder. Once it's selected, click Next to continue along to the final confirmations window.  You can Map Custom Fields button to make sure that all the fields in the source document line up with the fields in Outlook.  I don't think you'll have any problems with this - it worked for me.  So once you're happy with things, just click on Finish and Outlook will do the rest.

Things to note; Each appointment is set for 2.5 hours with a reminder at 5 hours prior to the event.  So if you're here in Eastern time zone, you'll have a reminder mid-afternoon. Each game is flagged as personal and your time is marked as busy.  You can change these prior to importing the file, if you like.

That's it. Enjoy the season and hopefully you won't miss a game.