Behind the Shield welcomes one and all back to our little corner of the blogosphere for the stoppage time portion of 2008 (the MLS-mandated minimum of three minutes, of course!). And thanks for your patience with us across the last week as we took a break to dig out from the Christmas night blizzard and celebrate the Holidays … hopefully yours were as enriching and relaxing as ours were.

With a week gone past since our last post, it’s time we catch up on some things and do a little house cleaning (which included deleting enough spam in the comments filter to build this castle … pretty crafty, no?). To see what’s on the docket for the first month of next year, take the jump …

- Well, believe it or not the MLS UberDraft is just 17 days away, so we’ll try to toss up some links from some mock drafts and position-by-position previews from our friends at ESPN Soccernet (GK’s and DEF’s already up) and Soccer by Ives (Mock Draft Version 2.0), among others, as they hit the interweb. Behind the Shield will be meeting in “St. Louie” for the Draft, so make sure you drop by on Jan. 15 to catch some exclusives from the newest crop of future RSL’ers, which as of now will include a class of three - the 12th overall selection and a pair of fourth rounders (54th & 57th).

- As always, the adidas MLS Player Combine will take place the week leading up to the draft – this year from Jan. 10-13 at Lockhart Stadium in beautiful Ft. Lauderdale. We’ll try to get daily updates from Garth, Jason, and the rest of the coaching staff following each day’s festivities, assuming they aren’t too busy enjoying umbrella-laden beverages to answer their phones. For a list of participants, click here.

- We received a comment asking about the preseason schedule, so here’s what we can give you thus far – we know that the 2009 preseason cast will assemble here in Salt Lake City for physicals, meetings and the like during the last few days of January. As of now there are three legs planned for the preseason – all domestic-based, spread between the warmer climates of California and Florida. Expect a finalized itinerary for the spring once all the i’s are dotted and t’s crossed, probably right around the SuperDraft, if not a little before.