Welcome to the Game Day Fire Drill, for this, Calgary’s first game of the season on Oct. 1, 2009.

You all know it.

When someone says the words, “endless summer,” it brings to mind images of happy days passed in idyllic settings for most. Similarly, most picture winter as being long, cruel and cold.

And for us, it’s the exact opposite. Every second of summer ticks by slowly as we starve for anything that even resembles hockey news. We we have just three or four days — the draft, the first day of free agency, the start of camp, etc. — to circle on our calendars. The dreary days between are regrettably forgetful. And the winter, which whips by at Mach 10, seems frightfully short by comparison.

But they pack a lot of action, fun, excitement and emotion into those few brief months, don’t they? I’ve been positively giddy all day (not that the burrito I had didn’t help my ever-improving mood!) and it’s all because I have four goddamn hockey games to watch for once in my stupid life.

I’m remarkably excited.

Let’s get to it then.

The Calgary Flames (0-0-0 for 0 points. Nothingth in the West, nothingth in the Northwest) and the Vancouver Canucks (0-0-0 for 0 points. Nothingth in the West, nothingth in the Northwest).

8 p.m. Mountain time and 10 p.m. Eastern time. All other time zones should just watch hockey tonight because oh. em. gee.

Pengrowth Saddledome, Calgary, Alberta.

Neither team has any home/road record, obviously, but these are the two strongest horses in the Northwest division, so that’ll be nice to watch, won’t it?

The obvious reason — They’re all that stand between the Calgary Flames and another division title. I find their position unacceptable.

Alain Vigneault — He just comes across as smug, doesn’t he?

The Sedin Twins — If they didn’t play in Vancouver, I’d have very little problem with them. They play hard, they’re fun to watch, and they seem like rather funny, affable gentlemen. But they’ve got those blue jerseys on, so they can take a walk.

Mikael Samuelsson — Obviously this is mostly based on the fact that he is a former Red Wing (never a selling point to your boy here), but anyone that makes the Vancouver offense more potent, even infinitesimally, is on the list as far as I’m concerned.

Sergei Shirokov — Last week I watched this movie, “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” and I learned several things about Russians. Mostly that they are not to be trusted.

Vancouver fans — They’re as bad, stupid, ugly and offensive to the human race as Oilers fans. They just live in a much nicer city (though, in contrast with Edmonton, the same could be said of hockey fans in Fallujah).

Oh come on. Enjoy the game and contain your excitement in the comments section.