Twitter is coming to an ice rink near you. Well, not exactly. But with the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs set to begin Wednesday, April 15, the NHL is adding a bit of Web 2.0 to the proceedings.

The National Hockey League has announced what it believes to be the first ever nationwide “Tweetup” in professional sports. Coverage will extend to 21 cities in the US and Canada.

Cities included are: Anaheim, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Denver, Detroit, Edmonton, Hartford, Montreal, Nashville, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Regina (Sask.), San Jose, St. John (NB), Toronto, Vancouver and Washington DC.

More information on the Tweetups at each city and how join in is available here .

“My expectation is that people will really, really enjoy this,” said NHL spokesman Mike DiLorenzo.

He admits the NHL has no specific expectations from a numbers or business/marketing perspective (very Twitter-like!), but says that’s not the point.

“We’re doing this for all the right reasons. We have a very tech savvy fan base that loves Twitter so we’re overlaying that with their love for the NHL. My hope is they come away from this saying the NHL is really cool to start the NHL playoffs this way. Down the road we’ll figure out other ways we can leverage this from a business perspective.”