Thursday Morning Cupcheck - Your Guide to NHL Opening Day 2012

Cheer up hockey fans, there's always the WBNA!

Good morning hockey fans! While last week we pined for yon Days of Barch, this week we cast off the Shroud of Boredom and celebrate October 11th, the End of the Offseason, baby!! 2012-13 SEASON, HERE WE COME!! HOT-CHAW-CHAW!!

"Hi, I'm here for the NHL Opening Night party. Am I too early?"

So many great things to look forw--hold up, someone's trying to tell me something important while sobbing uncontrollably. What's that? There's been a "bockbout?" No? A "smockshout?" Huh? I can't understand you, man, stop crying like a Canucks forward!

*(kicks weeping fan to the curb)* Nevermind, where was I? Ah, yes... it's NHL Opening Day! To celebrate this day, which is legally considered 141% more important than the birth of your first child, there are some simple ground rules. Follow these, and you can rest assured this will be one day that will go down in PARTY INFAM--wait, what? A what-out?

SON OF A...

(dejectedly stuffs 'Gary Bettman is #1' oversized foam cowboy hat into trash compactor) Well, it might not be time to break down a step-by-step guide to enjoying Opening Day (Step One: Weep in a dark corner. Step Two: Rock back and forth in the fetal position, shunning natural sunlight), but we can at least provide those glass-1%-full types among you with some Fun Facts!

Fun Fact #1: Since Bettman came into the league as commissioner, there is an 83% chance that hockey will start on the day everyone said it would. Not even Ted Williams ever hit .830!

Fortunately for the owners, Bettman's limitless fountain of charm has kept the fans firmly on their side.

Fun Fact #2: The crafty NHL owners used their financial genius to strong-arm NBC into paying them $200 million, even if there was no 2012-13 season. While a seemingly big number, $200 million comes out to less than seven million per team --quite a haul for a team like the Phoenix Coyotes, whose profit last year consisted of a half-eaten chimichanga and the urine-soaked a** of a rat!

Fun Fact #3: Even more impressively, as part of the above-mentioned deal, NBC gets a free year at the end of the contract in 2021-22. Considering the strong American dollar and projecting conservative yearly inflation rates of -65%, the typical NHL team ten years from now should be able to afford thirty Shea Webers a year with that money!

Fun Fact #4: $200 million is 6 percent of $3.3 billion! True story! Science!

"Hear me, hockey fans! As a reward for us withholding hockey from you, you will give us even more money after we've fleeced the players. Jeremy Jacobs has spoken!"

Fun Fact #5: The NHL and NHLPA are reportedly some $200 million apart on the core issues. That's less than what they've already lost with the games they've confirmed as canceled. Quick question: do they give out Nobel Prizes for genius?

Fun Fact #6: The NHL makes a staggering amount of money every year on jerseys, bobbleheads and game programs featuring the owners' names and likenesses. Almost enough to buy half a beer at any NHL arena!

Fun Fact #7: NHL owners repeatedly insist that hockey is "a business" like any other and should be treated like one... except for all those totally free half-a-billion-dollar taxpayer-funded stadiums, rich teams not even paying a single cent in property tax, and cities straight-up handing bags of cash to teams for nothing more than existing. In those cases, hockey is not a bottom-line business, it's a cultural phenomenon that needs public charity!

Fun Fact #8: THERE ARE NO MORE FUN FACTS.