Early March can be a tough time for footy fans. With the home-and-away season still a few weeks away, they hungrily devour pre     season highlights, results and stats, all the while pining for the 'real stuff' to begin. 

For Bulldogs' fans, the 2017 season is no different, with the side's first home-and-away match against Collingwood on Friday March 24 still the best part of two weeks away.

Way back in 2000, though, something unusual happened. On this day 17 years ago - Saturday March 11th - the Bulldogs' premiership season kicked off a full three weeks before April, once the traditional starting month of the footy season.

And it wasn't just the Dogs who took to the football field so early. The entire AFL season in 2000 was brought forward by three weeks, the Grand Final being played on the first Saturday in September rather than the last.

The reason? The Olympics. The Games of the XXVII Olympiad took place in Sydney in the last two weeks of September, 2000. Late September is, of course, the traditional domain of the AFL finals, and to avoid conflicting and competing interests, the AFL season made a once-only time shift in that year.

For the Bulldogs, the change worked well - at least for that first match against the Adelaide Crows. The team's earliest ever start to an AFL season saw the Bulldogs travel to Adelaide to take on the Crows at Football Park and come home with the chocolates.

The Dogs burst out of the blocks with a seven-goal first quarter but Adelaide hit back to lead by 10 points at half time. Not to be denied, the Bulldogs fired up again after the long break, and a six-goal-to-two third term saw them set up a 23-point win.

For the Bulldogs, Chris Grant was in sublime form, kicking five goals to go with his 21 disposals and 13 marks. Scott West and Nathan Brown were everywhere, each collecting 33 touches, while Tony Liberatore's 29-possession game saw him earn two Brownlow votes to start off yet another fine season.

The win kicked off a year which saw the Bulldogs make the finals for a fourth consecutive season, a feat never before achieved by the club.

With the Bulldogs bowing out in the first week of the 2000 finals, the premiership was won by the all-conquering Essendon (the Bombers' only loss for the year coming famously against Bulldogs in round 21) on September 2nd, and footy fans settled in for the Sydney Olympics - and the longest wait of all time for the next footy season to begin in 2001!