Hell, keeping tabs on a Magic: the Gathering tournament could be, in the loosest terms, considered sports.
Very loose...
DC Comics realized this and thus was born Strange Sports Stories.
That's actually pure speculation on my part. It's just as likely this comic was born of the same logic that brought us Space Cabbie. Throw it against the wall and see if it sticks.
Evidently Strange Sports Stories stuck, for awhile anyway.
Come along, dear reader, and see how strange we can get.
"Hockey-Mask of Death!"
Story by: Frank Robbins
Art by: John Rosenberger
So, this story could very well have appeared in Haunt of Vault of Ghostly Fear in the Castle of Horror, but it landed in Strange Sports Stories.
Thank. God.
This is essentially a mystery/revenge story centered around a French-Canadian lumberjack named Jacques Le Duc and a phantom hockey goalie. Not even kidding.
Jacques is known as "Beeg Jacques", mostly because this comic was written when it was still acceptable practice to take full advantage of accents and pidgin English attributed to foreigners.
Chris Claremont would beam with pride at the flagrant, "oui!", "sacre bleu!", and (of course) "mon dieu!", that runs rampant through the story.
In case you forget these were French-Canadian lumberjacks, Beeg Jacques and his fellow loggers are facing their cross-town lumberjack rivals in a hockey contest.
From a rival lumber camp, of course.
The Loggers and the Choppers, the two teams are called...
The game intensifies when Beeg Jacques kayos the opposing team's goalie, leaving them defenseless against the power forward.
Luckily, The Choppers find salvation in the form of a hulking, skull-masked goalie who appears in a crack of lightning.
Seriously. A skull-faced giant appears in a lightning bolt, offers to play goalie, and The Choppers are like, "sure, jump in, hoser."
The story's climax involves a piece of the frozen rink ice breaking off and flowing through a rapids as Beeg Jacques and the Ghostly Goalie settle their differences in a penalty shootout.
Swear to god, this is one of the wackiest short stories ever...
But wait.
There's more...
"Ski-Chase Through Space!"
Story: Frank Robbins
Art: Irv Novick & Frank McLaughlin
"If there'd been anyone around to see me waxing my skis in that blazing New Mexico sun, they'd have figured me plumb loco..."
Well, Sheriff Wilson, I reckon you're right.
What New Mexican lawman doesn't take ski vacations, though, really?
Coming out of the gate swingin', "Ski-Chase Through Space" hits us with bank-banditos, by thunderation, and it's up to Sheriff Wilson to get 'em to the calaboose.
Most of the ludicrous verbiage up there is directly from the script, by the way. It seems Mr. Robbins is fond, as were most writers of his era, of colloquialisms and stereotypes in regional speech.
Anywho, the sheriff always gets his man and is soon on his way to the slopes where he soon engages in a friendly game of cat-and-mouse.
Or "hound-and-hare", as it's called here. Sheriff Wilson and two of his ski-buddies engage in a downhill race where in the good lawman attempts to catch his compadres by "heading them off at the pass".
As it were.
In an attempt to make the Kessel Run in under twelve parsecs, Sheriff Wilson attempts a dangerous shortcut by jumping the 40-foot Devil's Drop.
Instead his consciousness is abducted by aliens.
As it were.
Finding himself on an strange world, Sheriff Bronc Wilson has had his mind transplanted into the body of alien lawman Melc-X-101, already in pursuit of a coupe of perps. Amongst other crimes, the criminals have made off with the 500-carat engagement ring Melc dug from the Diamond Volcano for his girlfriend, Zanisa Y-11.
Fortunately, these aliens are apparently ski-based in their locomotion and Bronc Wilson is no greenhorn to the slopes...
Okay, this story is nowhere near as amazing as Beeg Jacques and his fateful encounter with Death-Head the Ghostly Goalie, but it's still pretty entertaining.
I think I felt a little misled due to the cover copy. We see Sheriff Wilson in his cowboy-lawman duds skiing through space, past Saturn and (presumably) in hot pursuit of space-hooligans.
This scene does not appear in the book.
Nevertheless, both of these stories are re-goddamn-diculous and I love them. It's oddball entertainment without self-aware elbow nudging like you'll find in Harley Quinn or Deadpool. Or Gwenpool. Or Squirrel Girl.
This is earnest weird fiction and I've got one more moldy back issue of Strange Sports Stories to read and I can't wait.
This one's a 64-page special...
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