Bon voyage, Kate (Solution No. 3,276)

A few months ago, I mentioned the four Atlantic District officials that are working IIHF tournaments this year.  The one I get to skate with sometimes, Kate Connolly, leaves Sunday for Ottawa and the Women's World Championship.  But first her team has the league finals this week: they got a goal with less than two minutes to go to beat the green team in the semis.  That was good to see: the Stumblebums are one of the teams I look forward to reffing since they're such a friendly bunch. (but the gray team and the Brewers are just as nice, and the Cobras too, and I don't want to leave them out)

Kate has blogged about her previous IIHF assignments in China, France, and the Czech Republic, sharing stories about the cities and the people, and some pit talk from the games.  Now she's got her biggest opportunity yet: a good showing, and we might have an Olympian in our league next season!   Bon voyage, and have a great tournament!

Now to this week's puzzle solution:

Puzzle No. 3,276

Difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): hard—misdirection, a bit of crosswordeese, cross-references, and some secondary definitions.  Get through this and you’re ready to try some of the British puzzles.

Legend: "*" anagram; "~" sounds like; "<" letters reversed; "( )" letters inserted; "_" or lower case: letters deleted; "†" explicit in the clue, “^” first or last letter or letters, “{“ relocated letter or letters, “¶“ letter bank

solution and annotation below the fold

Across

1a	UNIONIZED	Double definition
6a	<PUC< | E	<CUP< (“grail”, reversal indicated by “returned”) + E (“excellent”)
8a	D | REAM	D (“500”) + REAM (“500 pieces of paper”)
9a	*WARHORSES	*ARROWS SHE (anagram indicated by “shot”)
11a	REP | RESENT	REP (“part of an exercise routine”) + RESENT (“posted again”: post as in mail)
12a	_E VITA_	on_E VITA_l (hidden word indicated by “segment”)
13a	T(A PRO)OM	TOM (“Cruise”) containing (“interrupted by”) A PRO (“an expert”): cross reference to 18a, INN
16a	*OXH(E)ART	ston^E^ (last letter indicated by “ultimately”) contained in (“lodged in”) *THORAX (anagram indicated by “unhealthy”)
18a	~INN	~IN (“popular”, homonym indicated by “sounding”)
19a	NAN | KEEN	NAN (“name of a woman”) + KEEN (“eager”) Had to guess at this one, but “keen” jumped out at me from the partial, fortunately.  Nankeen is a type of cloth woven from yellow cotton. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nankeen
20a	SURGEON	Pun: “surge on!” is what someone might say if they wanted to win a war.
21a	IRONY	Pun
23a	C(HI | NASH)OP	COP (“policeman”) containing (“nabs”) HI (“Hawaii”) + NASH (Ogden: “versifier” or poet) I was sidetracked trying to fit “Don Ho” into this one.
26a	*GREEN (C)ARD	*GARNERED (anagram indicated by “with difficulty”) containing (“to take”) ^C^itizenship (first letter indicated by “first step”) A well-earned exclamation point.
27a	TARS | I	TARS (“sailors”) + I (“iodine”) Tarsi are the bones of your foot, counterpart to your wristbones.  The bone I broke last season, the scaphoid, is also known as the wrist navicular (the navicular is in the foot).  Both names come from the fact that those bones resemble the shape of a boat.
28a	_ENYA	_k_ENYA (“African country”, omission of K indicated by “take $1,000 from”)
29a	*SAC(RAMEN)T	*CATS (anagram indicated by “bizarre”) containing (“eating”) RAMEN (“noodles”) Another good one, and difficult.

Down

1d	UNDER | STANDING	UNDER (“subject to”) + STANDING (“reputation”)
2d	I | *CE UP	I (†) + *PUCE (cross-ref to 6a, anagram indicated by “rearranged”)
3d	NUMB | *ER ON | E	NUMB (“unfeeling”) *NERO (anagram indicated by “fiddled”) + rom^E^ (last letter indicated by “end”)
4d	_ZO WIE_	chori_ZO WIE_ner (hidden word indicated by “[a] helping of”)
5d	*DURATIONS	*SIT AROUND (anagram indicated by “aimlessly”)
6d	P | ROVE	^P^olynesian (first letter indicated by “beginning of”) + ROVE (“travel”)
7d	CAST (I) | GATE	I (“one”) contained in (“found between”) CAST (“players”) + GATE (“entrance”)
10d	*STARTING POINT	*TRANSIT OPTING (anagram indicated by “redirect”)
14d	_P IN TO BE A N_	sou_P IN TO BE A N_utritious (hidden phrase indicated by “is ingredient of”) Spanning six words: do Hot and Trazom keep track of personal bests in this area?
15d	*MINK COATS	*SMACK INTO (anagram indicated by “crashed”)
17d	HER(*BAL TE)A	HERA (“goddess”) containing (“going around”) *TABLE (anagram indicated by “spilled”)
22d	*YENTA	*ATE NY (anagram indicated by “psycho”)
24d	INDIC_	INDIC_t_ (“accuse”, omission of last letter indicated by “almost”)
25d	~HORDE	~WHORED (homonym indicated by “by the sound of it”)