Carol Burnett, the one-time queen of variety TV, suggested stretching your lower lip over the top of your head provides the same sensation as labour pains.
It paints an agonizingly humorous picture of the delivery room, a sting the Calgary Drillers can feel, although nobody's laughing.
The fledgling American Basketball Association team has played six road games, yet the bouncing baby squad officially won't be born until tonight when it hits the Stampede Corral floor running to face the Las Vegas Rattlers at 7 p.m.
Getting this venture from conception to birth has been both painful and comical, although the chuckles have been mostly at the newborn franchise's expense.
Since announcing last summer a Calgary club would take part in the ABA's mind-boggling expansion from seven to 35 teams, the club has authored a number of embarrassing miscues.
After claiming the team would start the 36-game season in mid-November, the club was scratched from the ABA's schedule, replaced by the Dawgs of Visalia, Calif.
A few days later, apparently after ironing out financial concerns, the Drillers reappeared on the league's slate of games.
The club's training camp was plagued by a series of lapses in logic while scattered across three venues leaving players, team personnel and local media occasionally scrambling to find the rest of the squad.
The franchise couldn't finalize its Corral lease agreement until a couple of weeks ago and still has a website (www.calgarydrillers.ca) riddled with holes.
Their January schedule features nine home dates but opponents for next week's three games apparently are still undecided.
Even tonight's unveiling was originally scheduled for Tuesday, until the club realized the date put them head-to-head with the world junior hockey gold-medal game.
Last night, Drillers staff were scrambling to install the temporary playing surface inside the Corral, less than 24 hours before tipoff.
The slapstick comedy isn't surprising when considering the ABA's roots. Four years ago, league chairman Joe Newman helped revive a league first formed in the late 1960s. The loop was made famous as the original home of Julius (Dr. J) Irving, whose gravity-defying dunks made sports fans take notice in the early '70s.
After ending the 2002-03 campaign with just seven teams, Newman launched an overly ambitious expansion, welcoming almost anyone with a $10,000 US cheque.
The Calgary franchise's ownership group reportedly involves restaurateurs Scott and Todd Shipley of Original Joe's.
Despite obvious organizational shortcomings, the team could still be a winner if enough local basketball fans climb on board.
Tickets are reasonably priced at the lower end of the scale, with children ($8) and adults ($15) receiving a bargain, although courtside seats are an outlandish $100.
Who knows? The Drillers might one day grow up to be a slam-dunking sensation in Calgary's sports family but the franchise's birth couldn't have been more painful.
