Richard Bachman Will Wear A Stephen King-Inspired Goalie Mask

It's got to suck to be the Dallas Stars' backup goalie. He'll never be the most famous person named Richard Bachman, even though the guy ahead of him isn't actually named Richard Bachman. But he's embracing it, with this new mask from David Gunnarsson, featuring art from

Early in his career, Stephen King wrote under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman. (His early excuse was a curiosity about whether people were buying his books for the content, or because a successful author's name was on the cover. These days he chalks it up to something more prosaic: his publisher didn't want to dilute the Stephen King brand by releasing more than one book a year. )

Bachman (the hockey one) worked with the artist to create this mask, despite the fact that The Shining wasn't a Bachman book, and King himself tried to distance himself from the Kubrick film that provides the iconography. It's chock full of details, like the Overlook Hotel's hexagonal carpet pattern showing up in the Stars logo, and meant to "have the same uncomfortable feeling you have when you just wake up after a nightmare."

Also, The Long Walk is the best Stephen King novel ever written. You're wrong if you disagree.