Embedded Resources in vb.net

bnpayne

i have several chess pieces that are named like so "BasicBPawn.ico" and are embedded resources in a file
i'm trying to retrieve them like so....


Public Sub New()
MyBase.New()

Dim chessAssembly As System.Reflection.Assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly
Dim assemblyName As String = chessAssembly.GetName().Name
Dim imageName As String
Dim imageStream As System.IO.Stream

Dim rankNames() As String = System.Enum.GetNames(System.Type.GetType("BnPayne.Chess.Pieces.Rank"))

Dim intPlayer As Table.Player
Dim intRank As Short

For intPlayer = 0 To 1
For intRank = 0 To rankNames.Length - 1
imageName = assemblyName & "." & Me.Style & mAllegiances(intPlayer).ToString.Chars(0) & rankNames(intRank) & ".ico" '
imageStream = chessAssembly.GetManifestResourceStream(imageName)

mPieceImages(intPlayer, intRank) = New Icon(imageStream)

Next intRank
Next intPlayer

'set's piece 0 in any to the abstract piece
Me.AddPiece(Rank.Abstract, Player.None, -1)
End Sub

this is my error
An unhandled exception of type 'System.ArgumentException' occurred in system.drawing.dll

Additional information: 'null' is not a valid value for 'stream'.

the bold is where the error occurs

any help?
brandon