Each game will have one team designated “Stars” and one team designated “Stripes,” which I think we can all agree is a wasted opportunity. Personally, I would have named one team “Team USA” and the other team “Anaheim” and mandated that one player on the latter team in each state wear #4, thus giving fans across the country a chance to cheer against (and perhaps throw things at) a quasi-Todd Bertuzzi, but that’s just me.

Anyway, the schedule is out, giving us a chance to make a few predictions about Friday’s event:

*A record low negative-12 spectators will show up in Oklahoma (3:00 a.m. local time) and Kansas (3:30 a.m.) combined. In Florida, however, officials will be thrilled when 143 fans show up, nearly doubling the state record for attendance at a hockey game.

*A “first intermission” will be declared at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, when it is discovered that nobody in Mississippi owns a hockey stick, and that the planned venue is actually a disused canning factory with a layer of tuna grease serving as the ice surface.

*Fighting Sioux fans will blame Minnesota for the controversy in its game (5:00 a.m. local time), which will end with a bench-clearing brawl and 14 players disqualified for fighting.

*New Hampshire, scheduled to play the second game of the day at 12:30 Eastern, will surprise officials by moving its game up to 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Not to be outdone, Iowa (12:30 a.m. local time) will attempt to move its half-hour to sometime in late April, 2005.

*WCHA supervisor of officials Greg Shepherd will assign his son Derek to be the head referee of 39 of the 50 games.

*By 4:00 a.m., Jacques Lemaire will have been quoted as ripping the Stripes team for “lack of effort” 14 separate times.

*Scores from Texas’s game (2:30 a.m. local time) will be disallowed when it is discovered that Stars beat Stripes 28-21 in touch football.