2009-10 Season Officially Underway

I’m not afraid to prematurely congratulate you – you made it. I’m not worried about getting too excited too early because I don’t think there’s anything premature about it. Sure, the season doesn’t start until October 2nd. But that all depends on your definition of “season.” If you want to look at like an English/Math teacher then yes, the season starts 3 weeks from Friday. And if you want to look at it like Chris Berman the season starts with the opening of training camp on Saturday. But this is neither school nor the football season, and hockey works differently. No sport gets as little press in the off-season and therefore no off-season seems as long (especially when your GM goes and gets everyone way too excited way too early in the Summer). So we get to celebrate a little early.

Today actual Flyers are under the tutelage of their coach. One of them might play all 82 games, some of them might only make one appearance this season. But the Flyers have begun their 2009-10 march to the Stanley Cup. When they’re showing a recap of the Flyers season during the conference finals in May and they’re covering Pronger and Emery, all the injuries, the other predictable storylines, I want you to think back to today, Labor Day 2009, with all the other Philly fans that really bleed Orange first. Because just like the gang banger who doesn’t pay attention to the increased probability of getting arthritis from participating in too many drivebys NBC is not going to pay much attention to when the march really started. So today when Tiger Woods shot a 63 at the Deutsche Bank, when Jamie Moyer returned to the starting 5, when you’re uncle at 8 hot dogs and even more impressively drank 14 Bud Light Lime’s at the annual barbeque – man does that guy decide when it’s a party or what. Today is the day the season started.

So here’s to us, and your uncle, on a Monday that kind of feels like a Sunday but if you think about it enough feels like a Monday. Congratulations – shit is on. And if you don’t believe me how do you explain the fact that Penguins rookies are already getting beat(en?) up?