Until recently, my favorite cheap local commercial was one with a talking dog, two fat kids, and a really old lady for a restaurant called Bill’s Sticky Fingers in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, but I think this commercial for a car dealership featuring four Pittsburgh Penguins has superseded it.

That’s no thanks to the wooden acting of Sergei Gonchar; the theory seems to be that they wanted to put Evgeni “Geno” Malkin in the commercial, since he’s the Pen’s most recognizable superstar next to Sidney Crosby, but since he doesn’t speak English, Gonchar came along to translate, and they just threw him in there too and just let Malkin stand there like Frankenstein’s monster in a suit. My own theory is that Malkin has utterly no idea what’s going on, and the reason he seems pleased is that he thinks Gonchar is genuinely giving him a Jaguar.

The whole thing would be the most painful thing in the world except for a slick-looking Maxime Talbot and his little dance after he mocks Colby Armstrong with, “You? Who are you? I thought they only took care of superstars, like me! Chicka chee chee … chicka chee!” A bold, eccentric choice of thespiancraft* on Talbot’s part, and one too good not to make the final cut.

* When I typed the word “thespiancraft”, it was flagged in WordPress as a spelling error. So I Googled it. Two hits — both of them to my blog. Apparently, I’m the only person on the internet — and possibly anywhere — who has ever actually used that word. It is a word, right?