Welcome to the third Game Day Fire Drill, for this, Calgary’s 51st game of the season on Feb. 5, 2009.

The Flames sure have been bad lately. Just have a look at the titles of the last two postgame threads. Not exactly brimming with confidence, are they? And, as a person who tends to be surprised when any team I like does well, I view confidence as a risk, not a positive. That glass up above? Looks awful vacuous to me. Maybe even a little more than half-empty. Might want to measure it just to make sure.

But Chicago ain’t a jokin’-around kinda team and Calgary has been nothing but a joke this week. Christ, if Marek Svatos and James Neal can make Dion Phaneuf look like a turnstile, what is Jonathan Toews or Pat Kane or Martin Havlat going to do to him? My guess: beat him more regularly than the Edmonton media picks on fat, stupid Dustin Penner.

If everything goes as expected, Dion’s going to have to have a grief counselor coax him out of the fetal position into which he has rolled himself in the shower.

The Calgary Flames (30-16-4 for 64 points. Third in the West, first in the Northwest) and the Chicago Blackhawks (28-13-8 for 64 points. Fourth in the West, second in the Central)

7:30 p.m. Mountain time and 9:30 p.m. Eastern time. All other time zones can take a walk.

Pengrowth Saddledome, Calgary, Alberta.

Calgary is a very good 19-5-3 at home this year, but one of those three overtime losses was against Chicago, one of the league’s best road teams at 14-9-3. Plus, the ‘Hawks are 3-0 against Calgary this year, outscoring the Flames by a hefty 14-5 margin. Any time you’re giving up close to five goals a game to a team, you’re not doing too well.

Joel Quenneville — He’s a good coach, sure, but what’s with that awful mustache? He looks like he wandered into every arena from the set of “Deadwood.” Also, I have never heard of one trustworthy person who rocked a ‘stache (apart from Lanny McDonald, obviously). Mustaches, it should be noted, are the prefered facial hair of both pedophiles and totalitarian dictators. SO WHAT ARE YOU HIDING, JOEL!? WHAT SKELETONS ARE BURIED IN YOUR CLOSET?

They’re too damn good — Teams should only be allowed one superstar forward and one superstar defenseman. But this team has like three of each! Unfair! Toews should be forced to play for Carolina, Campbell should be forced to play for Atlanta. That would even everything out a little bit. Sorry if we want to keep it fair.

Nikolai Khabibulin — Don’t think I’ve forgotten about 2004. Go drink a whole bottle of Pedialite and cry about your glandular problems, you Ruskie pinko.

Cristobal Huet and Kris Versteeg — Girl names.

It’s the right thing to do. Enjoy the game and feel free to yammer amongst yourselves in the comments section!