The Red Wing

As follow-up to last week's WTF Wednesday, here's the Red Wings portion of the Guardian Project:

While he was already being called an affront to the holy institution of the Winged Wheel an hour before he was posted to the Guardian Project facebook page, I have to say that, considering what we've already seen, he could have been worse. I mean, granted, it seems a little superfluous that he have jet engines, legs, and some kind of knee-mounted, pop-and-lock Segway device, but I'm hearing from some sources that he also shoots lasers, which I guess is kind of cool. "Automotive empath" makes it sound like he can read cars' minds, which I'm hoping is accomplished by doing some Vulcan mind meld-like hand movements and a lot of grunting, because that would be hilarious.

Here he is in action:



... sort of.

I'm having a problem here though. What are they going to do with them? There's 30 of them altogether. That's a lot of character development (though not enough character development to keep them from ALL BEING SOME KIND OF PSYCHIC) to have a one-shot publicity dump at the All-Star game (which we all know is always watched by all hockey fans (I need a font to denote sarcasm.)) and then just drop them completely. And 30 characters seems like an awful lot of character interaction for a comic book. I'm worried the NHL is going to be using them in some weird official capacity, but for what, I can't say.

I don't know. Some news brief might have already covered this, but the internet is no longer dial-up compatible, and I can't run to a coffee shop every time I want to spend five minutes googling something at two in the morning, so for now this blog can only speculate.

At any rate, Segway-Starscream-Speed Racer up there is definitely not the weirdest thing to have worn the winged wheel.

No, not by far.

WTF Wednesday

As you all probably know by now, the NHL is going comical.


Now when I first heard of this, my concern was what they would concoct for the Red Wings. My mind immediately went to an image of an old man who can fly, is a Transformer, and has a pistol that shoots Little Caesar's Pizza.

I would buy this action figure in a heartbeat.

Now those of you who have naive, optimistic minds might be thinking this is crazy talk - that certainly the great Stan Lee, the father of the entire Marvel Comics franchise would be able to put together a character creation team that could come up with 30 unique, original, and non-crazy ideas. And if you want to keep thinking that, you should exit this blog immediately, because after seeing the ridiculousness that they came up with for the teams released so far, I think old Optimus Ted up there is going to hit well below the WTF-ery mark that Marvel is about to set.

So far 12 of the 30 superheroes have been revealed and they... well, you really just have to see them for yourselves.

The King looks prissy and like he would cry if he broke a nail (maybe it's the ponytail). The Oiler is clearly on steroids. The Hurricane looks like Genie Jafar, and I'm pretty sure that The Devil is just a horse. And they really spared no expense when inventing the Guardian's powers. Nothing says superhero like The Predator's "matter ingestion" or The Wild's "general mayhem" (I've got a two year old cousin who does both of those quite well).

My favorite so far is The Flyer:

A "granite chin"? Ok, I know what they mean by that, but I'm still getting the mental image of Bobby Clarke's head being used as a curling stone. (And sorry, no - you're not getting an MS Paint of that. I have to have this posted before midnight.)

This assessment of the project sounds a little scathing, I know, but there is honestly nothing this blog loves more than something hockey related that's so crazy it makes you question the laws of the universe.

It looks like the Guardian Project is going to answer all Hockeytown Static's secret wtf hopes and dreams.

Crosvechkin

One thing that everyone learns about me pretty quickly once the conversation has breached the subject of hockey is that one of the things I hate the most about he NHL is the Gary Bettman-fueled three-ring circus extravaganza of Crosby/Ovechkin. Not the players themselves, but the Gary Bettman-fueled three-ring circus. I've gone so far as to personify this media-entity as a living thing and have written numerous letters to my representatives in Congress asking why Crosvechkin has yet to be put on the list of known terrorists to be hunted down and shot.

oh god what have i done

But there's a reason I like to pay attention to the Winter Classic (and not just because I secretly think having a game outside is awesome enough to counteract my distaste toward any team that might be playing (even Crosvechkin)) - it's because the game itself seems to have fallen under some sort of gypsy curse. I'm not talking about the weather or the ice conditions (which, admittedly, have been hilarious), I'm talking about this:

Lost in the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals

Lost in the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals

Lost in the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals

So since both the Capitals and the Penguins are eastern conference teams, that leaves things wide open for a western conference candidate.

And I don't want to jinx anything, but the last two years have seen a prior Winter Classic participant be the one to carry out the curse on that year's team in the finals.

Now, could all this superstitious what-have-you simply be the result of the NHL just being good at choosing teams to participate in the Winter Classic, teams that are good enough to make it to the conference finals and beyond for a couple years surrounding their outdoor game debut?

Yes. But I have nothing of merit to say about the last three games the Wings played, and frankly just wanted to have an excuse to post Crosvechkin, which I worked on in MS Paint for three straight days.