SOUTH SURREY — Every Monday over the summer, Surrey Eagles' forward Ben Vikich posted a photo to his Instagram account that left thousands of his followers in stitches.
Vikich is half of the brains behind the hashtag #MovieStarMondays, where he and his friend Dean Allison recreate movie posters.
Their "B-grade" imitations of the posters have caught the attention of Sports Illustrated's Extra Mustard Blog, TSN's BarDown site, CBS Sports and the popular sports news site Bleacher Report. All of the media attention has taken Vikich's Instagram account past the 2,000 followers mark.
The whole campaign started out of pure boredom.
"One Monday afternoon, we both got home from the season and nothing was going on. We thought we'd take an Instagram (picture)," Vikich said. "It kinda just popped up."
They were starting their summer jobs after the junior season was over, and both of them had nothing to do on Mondays.
"We thought it would be funny to just do it once. We did Step Brothers, and it was just going to be that to see if we could make a few people laugh," Allison said.
"Right after that, all of our friends asked, 'What's your next one going to be?' We didn't think we were going to do a next one. From there it just kind of went on," added Vikich.
The duo, who grew up playing for Semiahmoo Minor Hockey, put restrictions on themselves for each image. They aren't allowed to use PhotoShop and each poster must cost $10 or less to put together.
This month, the duo wanted to pay tribute to Robin Williams after his apparent suicide on Aug. 11. They decided to reinvent the classic Mrs. Doubtfire movie poster, with Allison (as always) putting on the wig and playing a woman.
Of the posters they've made so far, the ones where Allison -who plays for the Flin Flon Bombers of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League -puts on a wig, and even in some cases, a brassiere.
In one photo, they re-enacted the poster for the Vince Vaughn movie Couples Retreat where Allison put on a wig and a dress and held Vikich's hand. It is their most successful poster to date with 419 likes and 17 comments on Instagram.
The Surrey Eagle said their poster imitating Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams inches away from each other in The Notebook was the best one to make.
"We were in his backyard and the sprinkler was coming down on us and we were so close. I think we needed to take 30 pictures before we stopped laughing," Vikich said.
The duo will be posting a little less frequently because Allison has left for Manitoba to re-join the Bombers.