This afternoon, the Edmonton Oilers tweeted out the start times for the first three games of their best-of-five play-in series against the Chicago Blackhawks and it’s got me feeling all warm and tingly inside. Ladies and gentlemen, get your popcorn ready.

Can I be honest with you guys for a second? It seems like every day there is a new piece of news that comes out about the resumption of the NHL season, and they’ve all got me feeling incredibly excited despite the overall oddness of the task at hand. From the moment the boys arrived back at Rogers Place to today’s peek at the schedule, the idea of the NHL coming back to finish off the season which seemed so farfetched not that long ago is starting to feel a lot more real. With that in mind, let’s look at the schedule so far:

Game 1: August 1st at 1:00pm MT
Game 2: August 3rd at 8:30pm MT
Game 3: August 5th at 8:30pm MT

With only 18 days to go until the puck drops because the Oilers and Blackhawks, I’m almost starting to wonder if my heart will be able to handle the everything that is yet to come because even finding out that the first game is happening on a Saturday afternoon has me all fired up. NationBeers in the sun on what I hope Captain Planet will turn into a wonderful Saturday afternoon sounds pretty good, doesn’t? Yeah, I thought so too.

Get those NationBeers on ice, fam, because the playoffs are going to be here before you know it.