There's always a hurt when you don't get to open the season in front of fans, but it's not like teams don't start the year on road trips--someone has to be the away team, so if it's a year where game one wasn't going to be at home anyway, is it really all that tough? Plus, getting to be a team that grows the game globally is always a bit of honor. The real shit of it is that you're dealing with so many other factors that sort of throw you off your game, especially early in the year. The routines are being broken out of, everything from arrival to pregame to food to sleep, not to mention the jet lag. There's a certain amount of "man that sucks" when you're not able to perform 110% at your all-time best when the point is trying both to win but also put on a show and try to make the game popular.