The Burger King jersey

Ever wonder what it would happen if Burger King started marketing hockey jerseys? Well, it would probably look a lot like what you see above. Back when the concept of third jerseys was just getting started, five teams decided to go with such jerseys in 1996. One of those teams was the Los Angeles Kings, who were in the midst of another losing season and at the time they were introduced, about to trade Wayne Gretzky to the St. Louis Blues. As for the jersey in question, the incredibly wacky design didn't do much for the team's image, let alone their record. The logo that adorns the jersey looks eerily similar to the Burger King mascot, which is not such a good thing. In fact, I believe this jersey was the inspiration behind the Burger King mascot. The fading grays that swooped from one corner to another of the jersey didn't help matter, nor did the lettering that would have felt more at home in a Mardi Gras parade. Simply put, a bizarre idea for a team that was about to lose its superstar. Rumors that this jersey made Gretzky ask for a trade are unsubstantiated.

Zombie Doom

Do you want to see blatant false advertising at its best (or worst)? Well, look no further than the movie Zombie Doom. This German "horror" film is 75 minutes long, yet only has about five minutes worth of zombies. So, why the name? Well, if I was to market this movie to the younger set, I would not want to have the parents see that movie was called Violent Shit III, which was in fact, the original name of this movie, though one has to wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to market it to the youth in the first place.

The basic plot of the movie is that three people get stranded on an island that houses a mysterious cult of people that wear masks that they get from what looks like a Radio Flyer wagon. The leader of the group is a guy that calls himself the Meister, who looks for all the world like a poor Hulk Hogan impersonator. Also in this group is Dr. Senius, complete with the Hitler 'stache and the Meister's father. The three castaways find themselves at the mercy of this horde and while two survive, the other gets killed before what the horde calls the "Pig Hunt." It is there that the two remaining survivors are joined by the horde's castoff Leon, and last time I checked, I don't know any Asian people named Leon. The trio does fairly well for themselves for a few minutes before the castaways run as the zombies begin to surface. Meanwhile, Leon is joined by a couple of his friends that were also cast off from the horde. It should be mentioned that the two remaining people from the beginning of this film get killed off about halfway through the film. Somehow, there is a longer sequence with ninjas (!) than there are zombies, and at the end of the movie, the only people left standing didn't even join in until halfway through the movie.

So, obvious logical errors aside, there are absolute signs that Zombie Doom was indeed, made on a small budget. When the people get decapitated, it is blatantly obvious that the mannequins of the victims are the ones taking the fall. The English dubbing is quite bad, ranging from the inability to sync sound effects with the proper actions to the "one sound effect at a time" idea to memorable lines that have people saying that others make them want to puke. There is lots of gore, lots of explosions (from Nerf guns posing as rocket launchers), and a bunch of stuff that would have been more at home on a low budget martial arts flick. If you're looking for gore and lots of it, Zombie Doom is the movie for you. If you're looking for any semblance of logic, then stay far, far away from this movie.

Demonia

While Italian director Lucio Fulci has had some great moments such as Zombi 2 and The Beyond, he had directed his share of horrible movies, as well. In fact, he left one of those movies while it was still in production mode (Zombie 3). His later years were especially unkind, and nowhere was that more evident than in one of his last directorial features in Demonia. I had bought the movie for about three bucks, so I thought of it to be a low risk deal. Boy, what that a mistake, even at three bucks.

The main story of the movie begins with some nuns with a mysterious mark on their forehead getting crucified some time ago. Fast forward to modern times in Toronto, where a teacher and his student are in the middle of a conference with other members of their archaeological team. That group travels to Sicily, where they accidentally release the ghosts of the nuns who were executed years earlier. Now, the ghosts set out on a killing spree, with one person getting killed in the meat freezer while his tongue is spiked to a chopping block while another ends up falling to his death, presumably pushed by one of the ghosts. The entire story line of the movie is one big mess, which often leaves the viewer clueless as to what the hell is going on in the movie. Despite some pretty decent murder scenes, the gore is somewhat hokey and hardly makes up for the total lack of...well, just about everything.

NHL Trade Deadline

I want to talk about the trade deadline in the National Hockey League that is now only a few hours away. However, it seems that all of the major fireworks surrounding this have already gone off. For starters, let's look at the supposed fire sale that the Calgary Flames had back in late January/early February. First, they trade defenseman Dion Phaneuf to the Toronto Maple Leafs (along with a couple of other players) and in return, get what can be best described as (three) role players and a prospect. Granted, Phaneuf was underachieving the last two years and essentially forced his way out of Calgary with his play, but there is always the risk that he could rediscover his game in Toronto or anywhere else he may end up (Remember Patrick Roy back in 1996?). A few days later, they trade yet another underachiever in center Olli Jokinen along with pesky winger Brandon Prust to the New York Rangers for wingers Ales Kotalik and Christopher Higgins, guys who also underachieved. I think Jokinen was on the downside of his career, which may sound unfair given that he's still relatively young enough to produce good numbers, but the real loss for the Flames was Prust, who was an energy guy that could drop the gloves when needed.

The real fireworks, though, happened in Atlanta, where it was widely talked about what would happen to superstar forward Ilya Kovalchuk. On February 6, he ended up getting traded to the New Jersey Devils along with another player in exchange for a defenseman and a couple of prospects (read: a song and a dance). I talked about this trade earlier, so I won't go into details, other than to say that even if Kovalchuk is nothing more than a rental to the Devils, they didn't lose much in the deal.

So, as the deadline approaches, it is now just a matter of teams who are in line for playoff spots to really just tweak their rosters and acquire the potential missing pieces for the run to the Stanley Cup.

Dallas Stars' Mooterus jersey

I have wanted to write about the infamous Dallas Stars' third jersey since I began this blog, but have put it off for various reasons, whether it was something else got my attention or I really dreaded writing this piece. However, here I am writing about it, so I guess there is no turning back now. Originally introduced in 2003, the logo used for the jersey was supposed to be a bull with the constellation inside of it. However, fans thought of it differently, as it earned the nickname "Mooterus," so called because it resembled the female reproductive system. To be fair to the folks who came up with the idea for the logo, this wasn't intentional. However, the inexplicable inclusion of the color red to the design made this more of a mess, which gets further muddied by the supposed comet-like design on the bull's left horn. So, to say that this jersey didn't last more than a year would be correct, but to say that this was a total disaster would be an understatement to the likes that only the Islanders' fisherman jerseys of the mid-90's and many of the third jerseys of 1996 can match.

Canadiens 100th Year Anniversary Jersey: 1912

Do not adjust your screen: this is really one of the jerseys that the Montreal Canadiens wore as part of the 100 year anniversary last year. This replica of the 1912 jerseys that the Canadiens wore is an assault on the eyes. Obviously, the team was paying homage to their lineage, and if this was still a black and white world, this jersey wouldn't be as blinding. Thankfully, the 100 year anniversary only comes once in a lifetime, and this jersey doesn't show up for any more than a year tops.

Zombie Bloodbath 3

I can remember seeing Zombie Bloodbath 3 on something that used to be the video format of choice called VHS (maybe you have heard of it). As you may remember, during my college days, I used to borrow some horror movies from a friend of mine to watch for a few days. This was one of those movies that I wish that I hadn't watched. Terrible in just about every way imaginable, yet just as much of a train wreck that I can't simply turn away.

Zombie Bloodbath 3 was part of a trilogy of films directed by Kansas City based director Todd Sheets. Locals will know him as the guy who owned a few haunted houses back in the day, which explains some of the settings for the movie. What is not explained is the incredibly shoddy "space" sequences, or the fact that the "high school" looks a lot like an elementary school, or the fact that zombies can talk and somehow play the piano, or just the incredibly lazy editing that sees the ending mirror the beginning. Saying all of that, there are some pretty good gory scenes for what it's worth, and the dialogue, though not intellectual, does provide some laughs every now and then. There is even a bloopers segment at the end of the movie, which at the very least, shows that Zombie Bloodath 3 doesn't take itself seriously.