OPINION: Rarely has 'Team-naming Tuesday' been so eagerly anticipated across the sporting universe.
Don't get me wrong, coronavirus lockdown has been tough on everyone, and will continue to take a financial and emotional toll over months to come.
Many who have survived the disease may take far longer to recover from the cure.
And it feels slightly inappropriate to complain about one's own predicament, when there are others out there, struggling to pick up the pieces from a genuine, once-in-a-lifetime (hopefully) global crisis, perhaps only comparable to a World War.
That said, being a sports reporter has probably never been harder.
Since March, we've watched powerlessly, as events have been cancelled - sometimes before our very eyes - staff and salaries have been slashed, and administrators have desperately tried to pick their way out of the rubble.
Monitoring how athletes adapted to captivity provided some initial inspiration and humour, but inevitably, that turned to pathos - like watching a caged lion pacing backwards and forwards, slowly forgetting what it felt like to run wild.
There were a few numbskulls who just didn't understand they were part of a much bigger picture, flouting (and indeed flaunting) quarantine rules, as if they didn't apply.
These were the idiots that ignored isolation/social distancing guidelines in the most blatant fashion and then posted evidence on social media. Make up your own mind which was dumber.
Those transgressors existed in every walk of life, but under such circumstances, highly paid sports stars paint themselves as prime targets for derision.
If you think that's some unfair 'tall poppy' thing, then deal with it. When you earn big money to play games that most people play for free, no-one feels sorry for you when you screw up.
Amid all this, the NRL never stopped searching for a way to restart its competition, risking ridicule and scorn in its quest to retain the TV dollar.
Chronicling the NZ Warriors' plight became a painful daily pastime - in and out of quarantine, then lockdown... needing exemption to return to Australia, they've got it… no wait, they don't… now they do… can the missus and kids come too… back in quarantine… the injury toll rises… can we borrow some players please?
Little wonder people quickly suffered from Warriors overkill - and they weren't even playing (or losing) games yet.
For two months, the lack of on-field activity made life particularly uncomfortable for sports media, as we struggled to justify our existence in an industry already tested to the limit - even before COVID-19 came along.
Some of our colleagues in other organisations have not kept their jobs through this troubling period and more may fall before it is finally behind us. They will be missed, but hopefully they too will be back.
Previously, Team-naming Tuesday has met with ambivalence in newsrooms, as journos struggle to find some new angle in a list of usual suspects named for that week's NRL games.
Super Rugby teams are traditionally announced two days before games, so that ritual plays out over 2-3 days nearer the end of the week.
But this Tuesday feels special, like we've dragged ourselves through a waterless desert and finally stumbled on a sporting oasis. That relief will turn to euphoria, once the revamped season actually kicks off on Thursday.
Then the Warriors will have a chance to reward their long-suffering families and fans for their perseverance, when they take on St George Dragons on Saturday.
In three weeks, the 15-a-side code will return under the 'Super Rugby Aotearoa' guise, then ANZ Premiership netball follows a week after that.
Soon after that, maybe our midweek 'social' (not really) basketball league will make an appearance.
Once more, sportswriters - those of us left standing - can look our 'real news' peers in the eye with a renewed sense of 'raison d'être' in expectation that we will again generate our share of reader clicks.
The return of live sport provides another long-overdue sign that mankind is slowly re-emerging from beneath the coronavirus shroud.
Long live Team-naming Tuesdays.
Grant Chapman is Newshub's online sports editor
