All eyes will be on the Super Bowl this weekend, but that still leaves plenty of time to sit back and enjoy a Mount Desert Islander that’s just jam-packed with news.

Developer Tom Walsh wants to reopen talks with Bar Harbor officials about creating a parking garage behind his new West Street Hotel. Such a structure could benefit both the hotel and the town, he argues. Just how it would work with the maze of rights-of-way, fragmented ownership of land and utility easements in that area remains to be seen.

The deer in Otter Creek are breathing a sigh of relief this week with news that a man who killed one of their kin will be spending time in jail. Stevie Smith called poaching deer a “local tradition,” but that didn’t cut it with the jury, which decided his case in court this week. Mr. Smith’s inventive defenses, including claiming the deer was a nuisance and later, that it was sick “like it was from a toxic waste site,” didn’t fly either.

If only those who don’t hesitate to kill things out of season could direct their attention to the recently-discovered infestation of hemlock woolly adelgid on MDI, something positive might come of it.

Efforts to embrace environmental sustainability by the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce were rewarded this week at the Governor’s Conference on Tourism.

Meanwhile, on the home front, island school officials are floating a student assessment system that may do away with traditional report cards and grade levels. What that means for tracking student progress, and for the parents’ ability to know how their children are doing, remains to be seen.

But there’s no doubt about the MDI High boys’ varsity basketball team which, with 15 wins, has achieved juggernaut status.

But exciting as that team is, it’s the Super Bowl that will have everyone’s attention this weekend. For those who want to add a little social activism to their gridiron enjoyment, Little Anthony’s and the Man Store in Bar Harbor are teaming up for an event to benefit the MDI YMCA.

All that, plus arts news, columns, letters, and new boats at the MDI Community Sailing Center in this week’s Islander.