Showtime

Yep, it's been a long six months. Bring on the lame fire-themed puns.

Tonight, we play the Flyers in a relatively rare matchup. In fact, the Flyers have not played in Calgary since October 12, 2002 (Wikipedia is amazing, I would just like to emphasize). Remember then? Roman Turek was our starting goalie, Flames fans were just starting to be abuzz about their most recent 50-goal scorer, and ...what? Only him and Conroy and Regehr are left from those days? Time flies, kids, indeed, it flies...

To finish up, Greg Gilbert was still the coach, the roster was dotted with illustrious names such as Scott Nichol and Blake Sloan, and...oh, you get the picture. Maybe we should invite the Flyers out to have tea and pancakes more often.

As an aside, it was the last time I actually lived in Calgary during the start of a regular season. But I digress.

Back to tonight!

I think many of us are anticipating a slow October. Well... it doesn't get any better than this. We get to start the season with a home date, against a team that was decidedly weak last year. I mean, they fired their coach (and purged most of their front office) long before most of us started grumbling about the sartorial misdeeds of one Jim Playfair.

That said, Philly's done some major renovations over the summer. We'll see some familiar faces like Lupul and their captain, Jason Smith. We'll see some old Flames like Denis Gauthier and Jim Dowd (will they be factors? Um, probably not...). We'll get to see Briere and Gagne hooked up for the regular season for the first time. And they have been smokin' hot. (Shit! About the lame fire-themed puns...).

And what about us? Flames fans, have, as a whole, psychoanalyzed the entire team into a rubber room. We know about their insecurities, their self doubts, their phobia of THE ROAD. We know about the coach's schizo personality, Dion's need for a security blanket (preferably named Hamrlik) and Iggy's inability to see a stormcloud in a hurricane. We know Juice and Tanguay will crumble like feta cheese the first time they're scolded in public.

The game doesn't get played in our heads after all. Time to forget what we know, and to just sit back and enjoy. Are we ready? It's too late to find out.

It's hockey time! Go Flames.

(Um, Calgary in a run-and-gun 4-3 win. I'm expecting to be entertained.)