It's because Madden Day (also known as Madden Holiday and Maddenoliday) is basically an unoffical holiday haha. So many guys use up their sick days on/after Madden's release day. It's been going on forever. Everyone at the old Maddenmania forums (now operation sports) used to go on about their rituals of calling in sick and playing all day. It's been mentioned in a few major newspaper's articles and has a couple urban dictionary entries. There used to be a site dedicated to making it an offical national holiday and of course local news all over, like this coverage from Madden Holiday 07 in PA. So a happy belated Madden Day to you, my friend!

Holy crap man?!? YOU MADE A GAME?

AND YOU DIDN'T CALL ME TO DO THE MUSIC?

Heartbroken total man
Seriously though, congrats, the second I get the opportunity I'm going to play it! That is awesome, I'm stoked to play it. Tell me all about it!! How long was it? Just you? Learn lots doing it? Inform away!

Sup man? Why do you hate me so much to stop your site from sending me a recovered password? What did I do to you? Really, what did I do?

Kidding! Hows it going? Long time since I could get on :)

Oh man, is your avatar supposed to be you in cartoon form? That's awesome. You might have to make a cartoon version of my smiling face!

Happy Belated Birthday, Master lee!

Haha. Now that E3 is over, are you disappointed or relieved that you no longer have to cover so many events at once?