Welcome back to the 1st game of the soon-to-be very, very long preseason.

I know you're as excited as Westy during a rum-strike to watch our Abby Nucks play their 1st game in Cowtown.

Was it a horrible result? Sure.

Does it forecast a long season of TicTok frowny pressers? Possibly.

On the other skate... this wasn't your $85M Canucks team. Only superstars on the ice for the Nucks were Podz and Hogz. And they seem improved with only a -1 for each. Irwin and Joshua tallied a -4 each. However, Woo woo'd us with a team leading -5 on the night. Lose big or go home boys. Or both.

Meanwhile, that Calgary farm team is pretty stacked. With Huberdeau, Lindholm, Kadri, Dube, Coronato, Tanev, Andersson and Marky, AHL glory could well be theirs this year for sure.

THE GOOD:
The much-maligned Nucking PK only gave up 2 goals in a horrific blowout. That's not so bad.

The fizzling Nucking PP were perfect - a perfect goose egg on 5 attempts. That's some very consistent carry-over from our previous lost season.

THE BAD:
Getting stomped into the red ice is never fun to watch. Even if it's farm team vs Industrial Farm team.

THE CLEVER:

Very shrewd of Taco to ice this young (mistake-prone) roster in the 1st game of the new look, new Era Nucks. Destroy the confidence of the farm team before destroying the confidence of the NHL roster. Brilliant strategy! Not what you'd expect from a guy who looks like he partied fast and furious over the summer and just wants the season to finish fast and early.

WATCH:
Do you want to watch the highlights? No, you do not. So many red lights on the red mile. Also... the new colour guy who replaces Cheech is not that colourful and has zero chemistry with Shortie. Gonna be an arduous season.

On the bright side, the Nucks only have a couple dozen more preseason games in Halberta (and Seaberta), before facing more from the Halbertans to open the season on Oct. 6th.

Is that so bad? Probably. Oh well.

Did we really think that after all the big big coaching/player changes and big big promises that this season would be different? Yeah, we maybe did. Because we're idjits and Nucks fans.

Buckle up. NM is back from summer vacay - grumpy, hungover and looking for new Nordic curse words.

Rövhatt! Avskum!