The Burns Crematorium Tour: Part 2, The Underbelly [1/2]

[DMaximus 1,046]

In part 1 of the tour of the newly sponsored Burns Crematorium Centre, Reaper defenseman Charlie Paddywagon gave us a tour of the outside and spectator areas of the arena. For part 2, Charlie joins us again to give a tour of the part of the arena he likes to call the “underbelly.” The underbelly is the backstage portion of the arena. It consists of the two team’s locker rooms along with various faculty facilities.

 

Our tour starts in the Reaper locker room. It has all the fixings of a modern locker room, huge individual player lockers, plush couches, and big screen TVs. A large reaper logo covers the middle of the padded floor. Charlie explains that no one is allowed to step on the logo. The punishment for disrespecting the logo by stepping on it is that you must get dressed in the visitor’s locker room. Charlie takes me to his locker to giddily show off his new clothes from the sponsor he recently signed with, Ferda Apparel. Trying on a fancy sport coat, he exclaims “Check out how nice this is! I’ve never had clothing this nice in my life!” As we walk through the locker room, we pass the shower area, which has a clearly defined shower for the female members of the Reapers. “Kandee calls this shower her oasis,” Charlie informs us. He claims the shower is the best that money can buy. “It has, like, 30 showerheads and detachable shower wands that can be set to varying levels of intensity. Sometimes Kandee likes her showers so much, we can hear her screams of joy all the way on the ice.”

 

As we continue past the showers, we reach the GMs office. Inside BladeMaiden and Bushito are feverishly working while 3 separate screens stream data from various VHL news agencies. BladeMaiden has two phones up to her face while Bushito is studying a whiteboard with possible lines for their upcoming game. Neither had time to field questions from this reporter.

 

Our next stop is the weight room. Like everything else in this ultra-modern, ultra-expensive arena, the weight room is state of the art. On the wall is a motivational saying: “Reap what you sow”. It’s easy to tell that Charlie has always loved the weight room. His eyes lit up when we entered the room and he can go on and on about specific machines, what they do, how many reps he can do, how many reps others can do, how much weight he can lift, and how much weight others can lift. Charlie takes pride in his strength and hard work ethic. That pride bursts out of him in the weight room.  

As we’re walking down the hall, I notice that one room is blocked off with yellow hazard tape and there is a toxic chemical warning symbol on the door. Looking closely, it appears there were letters written on the door. Those letters have since been scraped off, but you can still see the outline of them enough to make out the words, “Clone Room”. I ask Charlie about this room. He stammers a little bit with his answer, “Well… I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to tell you about this. I mean, I think everything was cleared by the league, I don’t know.” After a little more pressing, Charlie provides the details. Before the beginning of the season, this room was used to attempt to create a clone of the VHL player, Elasmobranch Fish. As many know, the Reapers drafted Elasmobranch Fish with their first pick in their inaugural VHLM dispersal draft. It turns out Fish was no longer eligible to play in the VHLM. In an effort to keep their pick, the Reapers attempted to clone Elasmobranch Fish before he became ineligible for the VHLM. Their attempts to clone Elasmobranch Fish were unsuccessful. This room is where those failed experiments went down. Very creepy.

 

Things get a little more cheery when we meet the Reapers equipment lady. Rita Davis, an 80 year old angel of a woman welcomes us into her equipment room. A banner hangs on the wall: “Reap what you sew”. “So many games they get the other team’s blood on them,” Rita says grinning as she scrubs Jet Jaguar’s jersey clean. “All the boys are so sweet to me. I wouldn’t believe you for one second if you told me their goal was to bring death to their opponents,” Rita says as she smiles and pinches Charlies cheek, who blushes in response. The entire exchange is so adorable you momentarily forget you’re in the “underbelly.”

 

As we approach the visiting team’s locker room, Charlie gets very excited. “I can’t believe we were able to do this to their locker room,” he says as he opens the door. In all my time as a reporter, I have never seen anything even remotely close to what the Crematorium visiting locker room is like. The entire room is designed to look like the inside of a demon alien. The walls, floor, and seats are all colored a blueish/red hue and covered is a wet mucus substance that is warm and slimy. The odor is a combination of vomit and sulfur. It feels like the room is alive, because the walls and floor pulse in an almost heartbeat like pattern. It is repulsively disgusting. I’m not sure how any team could get ready to play a professional hockey game in this room. Charlie is more than happy to share all the details of this gruesome room. “We wanted this room to feel like the final level in the video game Contra,” Charlie says, referring to the classic NES game. The Reapers were able to contact Shigeharu Umezaki, the creator of the original Contra game, to help design this locker room. Charlie says, “Shigeharu did such a great job. He understood exactly what we wanted this room to be and executed our vision to perfection. I have no idea how he was able to take what was in the video game and make it happen in real life. He did tell me that he got an actual alien to live here and this is actually the alien’s stomach. I think he was joking though… I don’t know it’s tough to know when there’s a translator. I’m pretty sure that was a joke, I don’t think this is actually an alien…” Charlie says as his voice trails off. We decided this was a good time to end the tour.

 

Artist rendering of The Crematorium visitors locker room.

 

All in all, the Reapers new stadium, the Burns Crematorium is an amazing arena that combines classic gothic stylings with modern trappings. All of which sits on top of a terrifying underbelly, which itself sits on top of a historic graveyard. I think this is the perfect place for the Philadelphia Reapers.

 

 

1146 Words

TPE for weeks ending 3/17 and 3/24 

[DMaximus 1,046]

Commenting for 2nd week's TPE.

 

1146 Words

TPE for weeks ending 3/17 and 3/24 

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

Review

This was a very creative and funny MS. I see nothing wrong with anything and this was well worth the 12 points you gained from it. Keep up the good work.