Squirt B game in October (Solution No. 3,298)

The ice was dead at the rink where I had two games yesterday.  I don’t know why or how--maybe it’s that they didn’t melt down and remake the ice during the summer, but it just felt dead out there.  Pucks that got dumped down to the other end would slow down or even stop before reaching the red line for icing, and it felt like work to skate.

Throw in a couple of teams of nine-year-olds who were new enough they were still having trouble lining up on the right side of the ice, and all the ingredients are there for a sloppy game, even on the part of the officials.  So I made up this mantra, and reminded my partner between periods:

“The habits you build in a Squirt B game in October are the framework 

for the game you bring to the playoffs in March.”

On to this week’s puzzle from Hot and Trazom, which definitely needed a sharp mind.

First glimpses were definitely not right in this week’s puzzle.  Lots of potential anagrams that didn’t fit, making you dig deeper to parse the wordplay.  Very few simple wordplays in this one: in fact I was thinking of flagging all the examples here of combining two different wordplay elements, such as in 21d and 23d.

Solution and annotation to The Nation Puzzle No. 3,298 below the fold

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; “§” heteronym, “¶“ letter bank

Across

1a	NUMBER ONE	Inverted clue: “I” is roman numeral one
6a	*TAME | R	*MEAT (anagram indicated by “cook”) + ^R^ice (first letter indicated by “a bit of”)
9a	*MAT(T)E	^T^ (first letter indicated by “a dash of”) contained in (“in”) *MEAT (anagram indicated by “stew”)
10a	TO(*WHEAD)ED	TOED (“kicked”) containing (“around”) *WE HAD (anagram indicated by “cruelly”)
11a	ALL IN | *THE FAMILY	ALL IN (“spent”) + *A HEFTY MIL (anagram indicated by “unwisely”) I had the answer right away from the enumeration and the “family” obvious in the anagram, but I couldn’t make the anagram work until the third or fourth try.
13a	LI(FELON)G_	_LIG_hts (first three letters indicated by “half”) containing (“hiding”) FELON (“criminal”)
15a	*ASPIRE	*PRAISE (anagram indicated by “misinterpret”)
17a	OR(N)ATE	ORATE (“lecture”) containing (“about”) ^N^ation (first letter indicated by “origin”)
19a	DISC | RE | ET	DISC (“record”) + RE (“concerning”) + ET (“Spielberg movie”)
22a	*TASMANIAN D | EVIL	*STAMINA AND (anagram indicated by “unusual”) + EVIL (“villany”)
25a	*PETRUCHIO	*OH PICTURE (anagram indicated by “strange”) Cross reference to 6a: Petruchio is a lead character in The Taming of the Shrew
26a	_CELLO	monti_CELLO (“presidential home” [look on the back of a nickel], last five letters indicated by “rear half”)
27a	W I C C A	^W^here ^I^ndividual ^C^ovens ^C^ould ^A^ffiliate (initials indicated by “primarily”) Exclamation point because the words are part of both the wordplay and the definition
28a	RE_}IN{STATE	RE{d} STATE (“Republican area,” replacement of D (“Democrat”) with IN (“elected”) indicated by “instead of”) Excellent wordplay: complicated but completely fair, which is OK because the answer is pretty easy to get from definition and intersecting letters.

Down

1d	*NE(MEAN) LION	*ONLINE (anagram indicated by “wrangle”) containing (“about”) MEAN (“nasty”) Hercules slew the Nemean Lion in the first of his twelve labors.
2d	<M | ETAL<	<LATE (“dead”) + M (”male”)< (reversal of the whole thing indicated by “northward”)
3d	E_TERNAL	E_x_TERNAL (“outside,” omission of X (“ten”) indicated by “loss of”)
4d	*OUTSHINE	*TIN HOUSE (anagram indicated by “dilapidated”)
5d	EX-(W IF)E_	EXE_c_ (“business manager,” omission of last letter indicated by “almost”) containing (“captivates”) W (“woman”) + IF (“assuming”)
6d	*THERMOS	*MOTHERS (anagram indicated by “break”)
7d	*MADELEI | N_E	*LIMEADE (anagram indicated by “mixed”) followed by (“on”) N_ectarin_E (first and last letters indicated by “hollowed out”)
8d	~RODE	~ROAD (“highway,” homonym indicated by “sound of”)
12d	MEN | TAL (NOT)E	MEN (“guys”) + NOT (†) contained in (“in”) TALE (“story”)
14d	FANTAS | TIC	FANTA’S (“soft drink’s”) + TIC (“idiosyncrasy”) Another one that’s not obvious at first and then you wonder how you could have missed it.
16d	*RIGATONI	*RIOTING and (“with”) A (anagram indicated by “revolutionary”) I was looking for CHE at the end.
18d	<_TEMPURA_<	<cle_AR UP MET_s< (reversal indicated by “looking back,” hidden word indicated by “property”)
20d	COD | ICES	COD (“fish”) + ICES (“kills”) An easy rebus made harder by connecting the two words.
21d	~_ANCHOR	~_b_ANKER (“Wall Street figure,” omission of first letter indicated by “losing head,” homophone indicated by “in conversation”)
23d	<_VOLG A<	<A GLOV_e_< (“fielder’s item,” omission of last letter indicated by “nearly,” reversal indicated by “heading upriver”)
24d	S | PEW	S (“small”) + PEW (“bench”)