Much has been made in recent weeks about European club soccer that insists on playing through the winter months.
It's a debate that inevitably pops up every time a bit of winter weather passes through the continent, with critics wondering why football stubbornly marches on through the worst weather period of the year.
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As Canadians, we tend to chuckle when anyone elsewhere in the world complains about "tough" weather this time of year, which usually means a couple of centimetres of snow and perhaps a (gasp!) windchill factor thrown in for good measure.
Hell, Canadians poke fun at one another when their compatriots complain about the winter. And God forbid if your city calls in the army to dig out of a major storm!
But I digress.
This year's spate of frosty weather is more than merely just sheltered Europeans whining about a dusting of snow. This time around it seems more serious, and certainly a lot more wide-ranging.
Consider that this was a story weeks ago, when the first cancellations in places like Scotland, northern England and Germany were reported. Sure, in those countries, the odd snowy day is to be expected, but when teams in Spain were having problems moving around, people started to take notice.
And when weeks passed, and things didn't get better, the chatter started getting louder.
Perhaps it was time to re-open the age-old debate of playing club soccer in Europe... in the summertime.
Let's get one thing clear, there is no universal "European calendar" for football. Despite what many Eurosnobs in this part of the world claim, the entire world does not abide by a single scheduling standard.
In places like Sweden and Norway, a football club's fixture list looks a lot like that of your average MLS or NASL side. That is, they play their first match of the season in early spring and wrap things up in late fall before the frost sets in.
Other countries with not-as-harsh-yet-still-significant winters employ long breaks, taking as many as three months off during the middle of the season to allow for the worst of Mother Nature's wrath to pass.
The first major European soccer figure to speak out about a possible schedule change was Arsène Wenger, the famous Arsenal manager who last week publicly pondered a February to November schedule for the Premier League.
Later that same day, George Peat, the self-described "anti-summer football" president of the Scottish Football Association, was forced to change his tune as the slew of cancellations piled up throughout the club pyramid in his country.
"When would you have a winter break? December, January or February? I am now beginning to think: 'Have it for December, January and February and play from March to November,'" Peat told The Guardian.
"You wouldn't have postponements. Now it is time for a change. The only problems would be when you have competitions like the World Cup and the European Championship. But other countries can find a way round it."
Therein lies the rub, though. Summertime is usually when international competitions are played, and North American fans know all too well how club and country can clash at that time of year.
Of course, with FIFA deciding that Qatar should host the 2022 World Cup, the weather issue - this time to do with excessive heat - has now seeped into international football as well.
The solution is simple, says Franz Beckenbauer.
Play the World Cup in winter.
"One should think about a different solution," the German legend told Bild. "In January or February you have a comfortable 25 degrees there. Plans for the biggest leagues would have to change for 2022 but that would not be a major undertaking."
The World Cup in winter, and the Premier League in summer? It's certainly a huge departure from the norm, and would take a lot of political tip-toeing to pull off.
But would it make a good permanent choice? I'm not too sure.
For one, those pesky winter storms that are now causing mayhem throughout European club football would do the same to the World Cup or European Championships (depending on location, of course), and given the extremely tight timelines of those events, such problems would be amplified exponentially.
A schedule switch would also permanently eliminate the possibility of some countries from ever hosting such tournaments again. Those dreamers among us who cling to the hope of Canada one day hosting a World Cup would have to completely discard of such a notion, as a January tournament would only work in British Columbia, and even that would be a crapshoot.
The fact is, there is no "right" time to play soccer, at least not from a global perspective. Each league and region needs to do whatever is best for their own clubs, players and fans.
Whether that means Euro leagues that abide by the "traditional" schedule would start playing in the summer months, well that remains to be seen.