Solutions and comments on the weekly cryptic crossword puzzles set by Joshua Kosman (Trazom) and Henri Picciotto (Hot), published in The Nation magazine.
Also weekly links to other cryptic and variety crosswords including solutions to New York Times cryptic, diagramless, and puns & anagrams puzzles.
It’s the season for soccer championships: the leagues decided last week, the Europa and a bunch of domestic cups this week, and the Champions League final next week. So I’ve been watching some soccer when there isn’t hockey on. The only thing I detest about soccer more than penalty kick shootouts is all the diving and playacting done to try and influence the referee. Players react to a routine foul by falling and rolling around like they’ve got a broken ankle, then pop up and continue playing once the ref has shown the opponent a yellow card. And there are plenty of cases where a foul is called on the player chasing the ballcarrier even when the ballcarrier is pushing and shoving just as much.
I think the answer is for big-time soccer to do what big-time hockey has done (NCAA and top-flight juniors as well as pro): use two referees instead of one. Then the referees won’t have to cover as much ground, and they’ll be closer to the play. More importantly, they’ll each have different angles on a play, which makes it a lot easier to see the retaliation and see what really caused a player to fall down. That would then take away a lot of the incentive for diving.
The bad argument against a two-ref system is tradition. The better argument is that the two officials can (and usually do) have two different standards of enforcement. But hockey (where the same argument was heard) showed that two refs are better than one. Of course it helps that lower-level games have been played with two referees for as long as I’ve been in the game: they just don’t have linesmen working with them like they do in the games that used to be one ref. There was already some variability in how calls were made: the second ref didn’t add as much to it as feared. And good communication between officials helps them adjust to each other and set a consistent standard.
Not a lot of new American puzzles this week: so I went for a couple of Financial Times puzzles, which I’ll comment on next Thursday. Both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal published acrostics this weekend (by Hex and Mike Shenk respectively).
The solution and annotation to The Nation puzzle No. 3,361 is below the fold.
For every game where the the finish is exciting as the trailing team tries desperately to get the tying goal while the team that’s leading tries to hold on, there are three or four where the contest is over well before the third period even starts. I had one of those Saturday afternoon. It was a middle school game, the yellow team vs. the lawn chairs (they fold up when you push them).
The lawn chairs had one decent line, while the yellow team had much more depth and skill overall. Interestingly, the lawn chairs dominated the face-offs, but it was the opposite way in shots on goal and on the scoreboard, even though the yellow team coach had instructed his players to ease up midway through the second and not run up the score. It was 5 to 1 after two periods.
I would have preferred not to have a third period in that game. The yellow team got two more goals, the lawn chairs had two more injuries and two more miraculous recoveries (I was sure the kid with the bright green sweater was going to the hospital when he was helped off the ice unable to put any weight on his right leg—he was back skating five minutes later). My partner got mouthed-off at by a 12-year-old from the yellow team, another one leveled an opponent with a two-hander in the back at the end of the game (I banged that penalty out right then and there, not waiting for a change of possession to blow the whistle—the coach might still be chewing out the kid for that one). And about halfway through the third, I reinjured the hamstring I hurt fencing last weekend.
In the third, the players get tired, the ice gets slow, the coaches get frustrated, and the fans get bored. Refs get tired and bored too, but we don’t show it. You might notice me stopping for a second when I hand off the puck or my partner. I’ll say a few words to help us stay motivated or be alert for a situation that could result in a penalty, or to commend my partner’s hustle or a call he just made.
And no, I don’t really think hockey games should be just two periods.
[whoops--left this on draft status: sorry, solvers] The solution to this week’s The Nation cryptic crossword is below the fold.
There is no other sport that does better by its retiring officials than hockey. Paul Devorski, one of the last of the old-time referees from the era of the three-man system, nameplates on your sweater, and officials without helmets, hung up his skates two weeks ago. As it has done for other retirees, the NHL gave Devo his choice of where to work his final game (here in Philly—Devo lives in Harrisburg) and which partners to work it with (among them Paul’s linesman brother Greg).
The players all skated over to the referee’s crease for a handshake line at the conclusion of the game, and to their great credit, the TV producers for NBC made sure to show it and take a moment to recognize some of the highlights of Devo’s career (including a seventh game of the Stanley Cup Final and the gold medal game of the 2006 Olympics).
Jake Voracek wishes Devo a happy and healthy retirement.
Devo’s retirement had particular meaning for me, since he was the last active NHL official who was older than me. Brad Watson, now the oldest ref remaining, is two weeks younger than I am.
There’s a few more years left in my legs, especially since I don’t have to keep up with the greatest players in the world like Devo did; but I’d be lying if I said retirement has never crossed my mind. I’ve stepped aside from working high school and top-level midget games: they need younger and faster officials than me. I also do a lot fewer three-game days than I used to.
There’s still plenty to skate for, even on the tail end of your career: working with younger officials, seeing players improve over the course of a season, nailing a close call on the line or an unusual situation and rules interpretation, and coming home with a story to share. That’s why we lace ‘em up and blow the whistle.
The Nation is finally back to regular publication after the anniversary issue.
There’s been research concluding that crosswords and other puzzles are a good way to keep your mind sharp as you grow older (note to young solvers: it’s never too early to start), but perhaps that’s not enough.
He just missed me there, but Sabers won the bout.
Working out clues exercises your mind, but you get to do it at your own pace. This Washington Post article, and the scientific study it references say that having to see, interpret, and react to an action is also important to maintaining cognitive abilities. Playing tennis has it; golf doesn’t. Refereeing definitely fills the bill, and so does fencing, but fencing is a little more forgiving to the body. Plus there’s the opportunity to be a competitor again after 25 years where I’ve never been the winner (or the loser) when I come off the ice.
So here’s a shot of me and Sabers from an article about the national collegiate championships, where Sabers refereed and I was assistant director. And there’s a TV clip (click here and here) where you can see your humble blogger in action (the left-hander in the background). If you’d like to try out fencing, drop me a line, and I can point you towards a club in your area. It’s never too late to start: the vet 60 women’s national and world saber champion got into the sport as an adult.
Choose your weapon (pen or pencil) and challenge puzzle no. 3,359!
This weekend I was managing a fencing tournament rather than refereeing hockey (I have hockey playoffs next weekend). One of my refs, a promising 17-year-old, handed out his first black card (a black card in fencing is the equivalent of a game misconduct in hockey), so I had my hands full handling the paperwork and making sure nothing really stupid happened, and missed a concert that Sabers was singing in. Fortunately, there were no parents going bonkers, and no appeal. In fact, the penalized athlete pretty much just ran out after the card was issued and we never saw him again.
No good official ever wants to dump a player or coach (even the notorious Earl Weaver), because it’s a hassle if not for any other reason. But the paperwork here was a breeze and an appeal wouldn’t have stood up even if the fencer had stayed and appealed. Though he was leading his bout and in a good position to win and move on to the quarterfinal, he got upset at a call and kicked his mask across the strip into the wall. About as obvious a black card offense as you can get. No second-guessing yourself: ideal for your first ejection.
So as I talked the ref through the process of writing up the report, we could focus on what to say and not to say: stick to the facts, keep it brief, and try and use the exact wording from the rulebook (with words like “vociferous”) to describe the offense as you saw or heard it. The point being to demonstrate to anyone reading the report that the ref had no reasonable option other than pulling the card.
Good week of puzzles, particularly the Stickler, which had a few clues which had been buffed to a glow. I agree with Falcon that this week’s National Post puzzle was unusually easy. After I saw his post, I tried it golf-style, running through the clues to see how many I could get on first glance without any crossing letters (I didn’t fill anything into the grid, just to protect me from the temptation to cheat. Got all but three answers on the first pass.
The solution and annotation to The Nation crossword No. 3,352 is below the fold.
Saturday I worked a game for 10-year-olds, and the quality of play wasn’t very good. More than a few instances of players lining up on the wrong side (usually they get that figured out by December).
One of the visiting team players (they actually were at home but since this was a make-up game, they were nominally the visitors) took three penalties, which is a lot at this level, and might have been whistled for one or two more had we been especially strict. They weren’t very good penalties: a couple for holding and a tripping. Between periods, my partner reminded me that we needed to keep an eye on this player and his violations. I said they were pretty blatant, to which my partner replied: “he hasn’t learned to get away with it yet.”
In the dressing room, I recalled how late in my career I was moved from playing wing to defenseman, and how I soon learned that you could get away with an awful lot of holding if you did it right. It was all in the placement of your arms and stick, and keeping your legs moving so as to make it look like you’re skating along and maintaining your position when you’re actually restraining the opponent.
With the new (post-lockout) standard of play in the NHL, refs are watching out for even the artful kind of holding and interference, and those actions are now getting called. Now you have to watch football to see skillful holding, but the principle is the same: illegally controlling an opponent’s movement while making it look legal.
The solution and annotation to The Nation puzzle No. 3,349 is below
the fold.
Besides hockey, I also referee fencing (because I didn’t
have enough slashing and spearing in my life). Last weekend I worked a Regional Youth Circuit tournament up
in Jersey City. It’s a charity event, and since the organizer was a friend of
mine, I was happy to volunteer my time.
The organizer also is a member of the Fencing Officials’
Commission, and she uses this tournament as a chance to give new referees a
chance to work a higher-level competition. She and a couple other FOC members observe and evaluate them
for a possible increase in their ratings.
When I checked in, she asked if I wanted to be observed. I answered no, because I wanted to have
at least one more large event under my belt first.
Then she asked me to go take over the boys’ 14-and-under,
which was the top event at the tournament.Despite getting a rules interpretation wrong at one point (when
a coach called me on it, I did the right thing by getting a ruling from Bout
Committee before we went on), I got to work all the way to the semifinals and run
a bout on the center strip.I was
elated, since one of my goals for the season was to increase my rating and work
a big event, and I accomplished it before the season was half-over.
The solution and annotation to The Nation puzzle No. 3,347 is below
the fold.
Pee Wee game Saturday night. The home team led five to nothing after the first period, outplaying the visitors pretty comprehensively. As often happens with youth games, the winning coaches don’t want to run up the score, so they make some deliberate changes to the game plan: passing a lot more than shooting.
So in the second period, when the home team got control of the puck in their end, they’d look up to find wingers breaking out into the neutral zone and try to reach them with a long pass. The TV announcers call this the “home run pass” and some of us call those forwards “floaters.” Old-time hockey people don’t like floaters, because those wingers aren’t coming back and playing defense. Refs like them even less, because a long pass like that forces you to race the length of the ice to pick up the play, and we don’t get to rest on the bench between shifts.
We got to the bench at the end of the period, and between gulps of water, I turned to my partner and said “looks like the All-Star Game out there [with all the long passes and no defense]: an All-Star Game minus the skill.
In our last episode, we learned why refs shouldn’t have rabbit ears. Today we find out that most refs have one thing or another that will instantly draw a penalty if said to them. If you have one of the growing number of female referees working your game (Hi, Kate!), you’d better not say anything about her gender, or anything sexual in nature. Every lady partner I’ve had makes that an automatic.
Me, it’s my glasses. During my playing days and early in my refereeing career, I wore contact lenses. But as I got older, I found they dried my eyes out uncomfortably. More importantly, my astigmatism has grown significantly worse, and the contacts didn’t correct for that. So I got a pair of Rec-Specs, which are special glasses made with an elastic strap that fits under a helmet. They had the added bonus of protecting my eyes from stray sticks and pucks in the days before they made us all wear visors.
They’re very effective, but they’re also quite obvious (and ugly, I’ll admit). So inevitably, some wag who thinks he’s being original makes a remark about my glasses being fogged up or something like that when a call goes against his team. That’s my automatic: two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct. I don’t care what the score is or whether you’ve been a perfect angel the rest of the game. Then once you’re in the penalty box, I’ll explain: “a referee who wears glasses is a referee who gets his eyes checked every season.”
Put on your solving glasses and have a go at this great variety of puzzles. The New York Times has a diagramless by Paula Gamache (blogged by Deb Amlen–spoiler warning), while the Wall Street Journal has Patrick Berry’s Cigar Boxes. Hints for both have been posted elsewhere on the blog.
Variety cryptics? Two of those, and believe it or not, the one by Kevin Wald is easier. Tom Toce created another of his three-dimensional puzzles.
Straight cryptics? A pair of them too. Hex in the National Post (as blogged by Falcon) and the regular syndicated puzzle from the Globe and Mail.
And variety solvers might enjoy Thursday's New York Times straight crossword (Wordplay link)–it’s not so straight after all.
So with all that puzzling going on, it’s a good week for Stickler to take a week off and celebrate his daughter’s wedding. We wish them many blissful years together.
Degree of difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle): very hard
Cluing challenge: RABBIT EARS
Weeks there isn’t a new Word Salad post, the weekly cluing challenge comes here to visit. Share your clues for RABBIT EARS in the comments.
In an online discussion of unsportsmanlike conduct and when to penalize it, I was asked if I ever gave a penalty after someone complained about an opponent’s or spectator’s actions. The answer was “no”: it’s a bad idea to let participants talk you into penalties. I added that it’s taking the participant’s “rabbit ears” and putting them on yourself.
Rabbit ears: the ability to hear and overreact to even small bits of misconduct, is a bad reputation for a ref to have: it means you’re overly sensitive to criticism and suggests that you lack confidence in your calls or are too strict and overbearing in your management of the players and coaches.
Once you’ve worked even a handful of games, you realize that there’s much more yelling and griping and cursing than you could ever penalize if you called them by the letter of the rulebook. So it’s an important skill to learn to distinguish a reflexive and frustrated reaction from someone trying to start an argument.
The solution and annotation to The Nation puzzle No. 3,346 is below
the fold.
I did a little less refereeing than I expected to do at the fencing tournament Sunday, but for a good reason: I managed to make it to the round of 16 and ended up in 14th place. After being eliminated, I worked a quarterfinal between a highly-ranked junior (who eventually won the tournament) and one of my Friday night practice partners (who needless to say is a much better fencer than me).
My friend was having a really good day, having beaten the junior in the preliminary round, and he got off to a good start in this bout. He carried a 10-6 lead into the second period, but his opponent adjusted his distance to make better use of his reach advantage, and my friend’s attacks started falling short, making for easy ripostes. I could see the bout slipping away but of course I couldn’t say anything (much as I wanted to), and the junior eventually won 15-13. The one minute break between the second and third periods, with the score 14-13, felt interminable.
Later, he told me he knew he should have fenced more defensively once he had that second period lead, but he kept doing what he’d done up to that point because it was working. I said I had the same situation in my last preliminary, where I clawed my way to a 4-4 tie with a very good college kid from Colombia, but blew the last point infighting instead of escaping to the back of the strip so I could start over. Of this lessons are made: thinking and reacting at the same time is very difficult.
The solution to The Nation puzzle no. 3,200 is below the fold.
Each November, I join thousands (I hope) of other refs in dedicating one of our game fees to Hockey Fights Cancer. Saturday morning was that game: a nice skate with the mites (seven-year-olds) and a partner who looked to be 12 or 13 (with the perfect balance of support and independence from his father).
Want to join us? Take an hour’s pay or the proceeds from a puzzle you construct, and send it to Hockey Fights Cancer. The first five people who do so and send an e-mail to thenationcryptic@gmail.com will get a Hockey Fights Cancer decal you can put on your helmet (or fencing mask!).
The solution and annotation of The Nation puzzle no. 3,343 is below the fold.
In the latest edition of their rulebook, USA Hockey redesignated its checking and non-checking categories “Body Checking” and “Body Contact.” I applauded the change because there is plenty of banging and crashing in the non-checking levels, and it might cut down on parents who scream at the ref because someone hit their kid and he’s down on the ice.
Of course you’re not supposed to body-check the ref at any level of hockey, but we take our lumps too. One of the more dangerous times for a referee is when the puck gets dumped in over the blue line and players are chasing it. Normally, I bump out away from the boards to give the defenseman a straight line to the puck; otherwise, the players try to go through me rather than around. This time though, there was also a forward chasing, and he didn’t expect me to make the move. He hit me at full speed and I got rocked. That’s why we wear all that protective equipment.
D players are such bad skaters that if you can’t get out of their way, it’s time to retire. Cs will run into you, but more often than not, they’re the one who lands on the ice. Senior As are good skaters, and if you get in their way, they shove you aside and drop a few four-letter words on the way. Bs have all the size and speed, but not the agility, which is a recipe for collisions. We should get combat pay at that level.
This week’s puzzle referred to a much less physical pastime. Read on to find out what one...
The solution to puzzle no. 3,342 is below the fold.
Scene: Sunday morning on an ice rink somewhere in the Philadelphia area: the third period. A pee wee player gains control of the puck and skates into the neutral zone, followed by another pee wee player, with a referee trailing them. The second player wraps his stick around the first player. The referee raises his arm. The three continue into the neutral zone where another player knocks the puck away from the first player. The referee blows his whistle and directs the second player to the penalty bench.
Referee (to scorer): 44 white holding! Minor penalty. Four four.
Coach (to referee): You’re killing us! How did he hold him?
Monday, I groused about the ice at one of my home rinks and the management’s ongoing problems. It’s been like that as long as I’ve been skating there, and I’ve been skating there since Ian Walsh was working Pee Wees. But there were some years I didn’t skate there. Around 2000, they fully enclosed the rink (it used to be partly open-air) and reconfigured the boards, moving the benches from one side to the other.
Not surprisingly, they cheaped out on the job. Instead of buying new glass or at least some replacement panes for the relocated bench doors, they transferred the glass from one spot to another, cutting where the panes were too big. That left two spots with gaps in the glass about six inches to a foot wide: just enough to catch an arm. And when the put up protective nets behind the end glass, the eye bolts they bought were too long, and stuck out into the playing area. If I put up my hand for a penalty in one of those spots, I could cut it on the bolt. And then the bottom of the Zam door was worn, and if it wasn’t shut tight enough, a puck could slip under.
All accidents waiting to happen. If a player got hurt on one of those danger spots during a game I was refereeing, the family would probably sue everyone in sight. We refs get liability insurance from USA Hockey, but even if it didn’t hit me in the bank account, a lawsuit would be a real pain in the tail. So I reported the situation to the Risk Management department at USA Hockey, and when the rink didn’t do anything about the problems. I told my assigner not to give me any more games there. About five years later they finally replaced the boards and glass, and I resumed skating there. But the place is still a pit.
Much better quality in the puzzles, as always. First off, don’t forget the annual NYT crossword contest. You need the solutions to all six of the week’s puzzles to get some kind of meta. Answers are due at 6:00 tonight, New York time.
The new Harpers is out, and this month’s Richard Maltby cryptic is too. That means it’s also time for Erica to take apart last month’s Playfair Square. Even though she and her Sweet Vladimir were winners (again: good for you!), her blog brings the smack from the get-go. “This was some real bulls***” she says. But Erica and Vlad were smart enough to pull out a bag of Scrabble tiles to solve the cipher. I got partway through the cipher (the puzzle wasn’t unduly hard) but never got around to finishing. I’ll try Erica’s trick. Bonus in her post: her mom makes an appearance.
The Wall Street Journal variety puzzle is a Rows Garden by Patrick Berry. It was the easiest Rows Garden I’ve ever solved. But there are hints elsewhere on the blog if you need them.
Likewise, the Fred Piscop diagramless (Wordplay link: spoilers!) in today’s New York Times posed little difficulty as well. I’ve posted a solution in case you’re stuck on anything.
For your straight cryptic pleasure, there are three weekly puzzles by Hex, Stickler, and the syndicate for the Globe and Mail. These will be harder than the WSJ and NYT puzzles.
We have a good young fencer at the club, whom I don’t see very much of since his weapon is foil and my son’s is saber. Like my son, he’s also been encouraged to do some refereeing, and the coach decided to have him work the tournament at the club last Sunday. One important difference: he’s 10 or 11 years old. [continued below the fold]
You’re never too young to try a new puzzle though, and there are lots to choose from (see Kegler and scroll to the bottom for a pair of cryptics created for middle schoolers).
The new Harper’s is out, with a Richard Maltby variety cryptic called “4 Across.” No hints since it’s a prize puzzle, but I will say it makes up for what Erica thought was a shortfall of tackiness in June. See her blog for a rundown of last month’s Sixes and Sevens (and Twelves).
In the Wall Street Journal, we have a Double or Nothing by Patrick Berry. Each space in the grid is filled with either two letters or none: never one. Enumerations are not given so you have to figure out the length of each answer and which spaces have to be left blank as you fill it in. It actually isn’t as hard as you think. Getting the first few words in is tough, but once you have that, the rest is very satisfying. Give it a shot, and if you really can’t hack it, I’ve posted a hint grid and solution elsewhere on the blog.
Also on the blog is the solution to this weekend’s New York Times variety puzzle, a diagramless by Paula Gamache. Solve it (puzzle is behind the NYT paywall) and then click over to Wordplay for solvers’ notes from Deb Amlen.
Weekly straight cryptics are in the National Post (by Hex) and the Globe and Mail (syndicated).
I just got to a fencing exhibition in Allentown when I got a
message from my assigner: can you skate two games tonight? They were part of a charity event and
not league, so I figured they wouldn’t be difficult. Good chance to see what kind of shape I was in.
So I fenced in front of a lot of onlookers, won one bout,
and didn’t look out of place. The event was outdoors: it wasn’t as hot as last
year, but I was still sweating profusely under the mask. Lost in the
quarterfinal as expected, got changed, and hustled home. Then I had a whole 15 minutes to put
down the fencing bag, grab the hockey bag and ref briefcase, make sure (twice)
that my sports glasses were in the bag, and leave for the rink (with time enroute
to grab something to eat). When I
got to the rink, I exchanged pleasantries with a group of players and
wives/girlfriends tailgating in the parking lot, which had me looking forward
to a nice friendly skate.
Not so. About
five minutes in, we had our first scuffle of the night. Several more ensued, each one more
heated than the last. The last
three I managed to get in between the combatants before any punches were
thrown, but my partner had had enough.
He called the two captains over to the referee’s crease and read them
the riot act. “You guys are acting
like a bunch of five-year-olds arguing ‘he started it.’ This is a charity tournament: we’re
here for something more important than the final score… and if we have to break
up one more fight I’m calling the game and sending you home!”
That got us through the second period with no more
incidents, and by the third, the players were too tired to fight. They weren’t too tired to play though,
and the white team took a 3-0 lead.
Halfway through the third, with the white team shorthanded, one of their
good defensemen wound up a slap shot to clear the puck out of the zone. Instead of aiming up the middle of the ice,
he aimed for the boards, right where I was standing. The puck hit me on the top of the hip, so hard it almost
drew blood even though it hit me on the padded girdle I wear.
Fortunately the second game was much more what we expected:
C teams playing for fun and only one or two minor tussles. I got a bag of ice from the snack bar
and stuffed it under the girdle while I skated. The bruise has been a beauty. Sunday there was a red diamond with a white center where the
puck hit, Monday and Tuesday it turned deep black and blue; a splotch about as
big as your fist. The end of the
week was a rainbow of colors; who needs tattoos? And today there’s still a puck-sized mark more violet than
purple, with a knot where I was hit.
So far no pencils have suffered any injuries as I work my way through these puzzles:
Two acrostics this weekend: by Mike Shenk in the Wall Street Journal and by Hex in the New York Times (puzzle behind the paywall, comments and spoilers at Wordplay).
Block cryptics in the Canadian papers: by Hex in the National Post (blogged by Falcon) and syndicated (Hot informs us it is not Fraser Simpson constructing these) in the Globe and Mail. Easy and hard respectively.
Catching up with Kevin Wald, I solved Bachelor Party this week: another example of his amazing ability to hide themes in clues as well as the grid.
BEQ reminds us that Lollapuzzoola is going on two weeks from now in New York, but you are invited to play from home too. The ever-useful BEQ also points us to an article in The Atlantic expressing concern about the future of crosswords in an age when fewer and fewer people read printed newspapers and magazines. BEQ catches the irony of seeing this in a publication that is “covered in Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon's blood.”
Two acrostic weekend: the New York Times has a Hex acrostic behind the paywall: blogged (with spoilers) by Deb Amlen. The weekend Wall Street Journal puzzle is an acrostic by Mike Shenk. Mike made it a satisfying one by putting enough easy answers at the beginning that most solvers would have enough letters from the first time through the clues to be able to complete some words from the quote and have hints for the next time through.
Falcon is back from vacation to blog the National Post puzzle by Hex and post the ones that were published the weeks he was off in Europe. This weekend’s puzzle was very easy. As usual, there’s a harder cryptic in the Globe and Mail.
LizR is back too, with one of her Brit cryptics, and a diet of worms (see the comments for explanation).
Last week I hinted there were some league commissioners who weren’t so good about suspending players who got third-man-in penalties or engaged in otherwise egregious misconduct. They’re how leagues get reputations as “goon leagues.”
Most men’s league players have a family to go home to after the game and a job to go to the next morning. Brawling is not the reason they play hockey. But like there are some hooligans among soccer fans, there are hockey players (who probably watch too much TV hockey) who make fighting (or at least scuffling) a big part of their game.
Most leagues, when they’re faced with players like this (or worse yet, a team of players who egg each other on), think of the guys who are going to work the next morning, and invite the brawlers to go find another place to play. There are exceptions though, and usually for the same reason. Men’s league is a pretty important source of revenue for most rinks. Kicking a player or team out of the league costs them money, so they’ll avoid taking that step. And some players have figured that out, so they’ll threaten to quit and take their money with them if a player is kicked out or suspended too long.
I had to deal with one of those teams in the Penn league a few years ago. My partner and I gave one of their players a triple game misconduct (spearing, then fighting and pulling off the opponent’s helmet, all in the same incident) and we saw him back on the ice the next week. He had a few more run-ins with the law that season, but fortunately, he didn’t come back the next season.
The officials in the Washington area (where I worked the 93-94 season) have a strong and well-run association. They handle all the scheduling and payment of officials for most of the hockey in the region. One time, a league gave in to a captain who threatened to take his team out of the league if the suspension of one of his players wasn’t overturned. After finding the player back in action, the association stopped assigning refs to that league and instructed its members to stay away from that rink until the suspension was enforced. The league tried to go on with refs who weren’t association members and a few who ignored the boycott, but that didn’t work for long, and the forces of order and gentlemanly hockey prevailed.
Scroll down below the video for the weekend’s new puzzles. [update: Link to NYT solution added]
I think I’ve mentioned it before, but the hockey rulebook and related publications have a rather peculiar language. We wear trousers rather than pants, players get into altercations rather than fights, and the “third man in” rule actually penalizes the “first to intervene.”
Third man in rightly is one of the most serious offenses in the book. One of the others is physically abusing or interfering with an official. It so happens that the latter most happens in the process of preventing the former, and that was the case in the Stanley Cup game this week between the Canadiens and the Rangers. There was a fight between two other players during the first period, and Carcillo appeared to be looking for a chance to join in. Scott Driscoll, who’s one of the top linesmen in the league, saw the situation developing, and smartly placed himself in between Carcillo and the fight.
Carcillo then threw an elbow at Driscoll to try and get free and get into the fight. That earned him a ten-game suspension. That’s a long suspension, in line with what the league hands out for a high hit that injures an opponent. Kerry Fraser explains the story behind that rule over at his blog “C’mon Ref.”
Some of the TSN viewers who responded to Fraser’s explanation didn’t buy it, but if you’ve ever refereed men’s league, you know exactly why the penalty is so stiff. Fights happen occasionally, and scuffles happen a lot more. But there are a few players who go absolutely bonkers when one of their teammates gets into a scrap. We had a couple of them in the Penn league a few years ago. If you don’t stop them, they can turn a routine pushing and shoving incident into a full-blown brawl involving all the players on the ice. So league commissioners usually issue long suspensions for these incidents. The ones that don’t? That’s a story for another day.
How about doing battle in a much less violent way with these puzzles?
The Sunday New York Times (behind the paywall) features a cryptic by Richard Silvestri. The solution is posted below. Deb Amlen blogs it (spoiler alert) at Wordplay.
There’s a Hex cryptic in the National Post, but Falcon is on vacation and you’ll have to wait to see it. I’ve already solved it, and it was hard. You can get the Globe and Mail puzzle by Fraser Simpson right now.
The Wall Street Journal weekend puzzle is a Labyrinth by Mike Shenk. It’s definitely hard. Lots of solvers are having trouble with the top four rows, so they’re not finding a toehold. Try and get the rows below that, and see if that gives you enough of a hint at a “winding” answer that you can get some letters extending into the top rows. If not, I have a hint grid posted elsewhere on the blog, and the solution is up if you want to check your answers.
Good news if you own Puzzazz (and if you liked that Labyrinth, the new e-book of variety puzzles: “Mike Shenk’s Variety Show” is a pretty good reason to download the app). Version 3.3 was just released this week. I was glad to see that the app now allows you to delete puzzles from your download folder once you’re through with them. Next I’d like to see a way to create different download folders so cryptics can go in one “book” and Puns and Anagrams can go in another.
Puzzazz has also finished the e-book version of “Cryptic All-Stars.” I’ve been working my way through the book over the last couple of months, and while the standard isn’t as uniformly high as we get from the top constructors like Hot and Trazom, the variety of variety puzzles and constructing styles has been entertaining.
Last Sunday I had a spring league double-header. Off-season hockey ought to be more about building skills than being competitive. There was a summer league I worked in Maryland twenty years ago that had the right idea. Body checking was not allowed, and the organizers told the players they were expected to play defense by outskating the puck carrier instead of hitting him or going for his stick.
Even at this point in my career, I too still look for opportunities to work on new skills, and last weekend was one of them. The first game was 9- and 10-year-olds, and many of them look to have just moved up from mite-level. So I decided this would be a great time to try an NHL-style draw: down way low with your arm out to present the puck. Colorado wants us to use that type of draw, but most of us value our safety more than pleasing the USA Hockey administration, so we drop the puck the way they used to instruct us to do.
An NHL face-off. See where the players are?
But a spring league game, with players who probably couldn’t hurt me if they tried? Perfect time to work on a new technique. The photo at left shows what it should look like: get your rear end down and form a diamond with your rear end, your shoulders, your puck hand, and your skates.
But I bounced the puck through the whole first period. Once I was comfortable with the position and still bouncing pucks, I shifted my hand and put two fingers on top of the puck. The pucks started landing flat. Mission accomplished.
Work on your pencil-holding grip for these puzzles.
It’s an excellent weekend for variety cryptic fans like me. The Wall Street Journal puzzle is a Hex cryptic called “Rebuses.” There are fifteen unconventional clues: you should be able to figure out how they work. If you can’t, try these hints.
Next we’ve got the new Harper’s, which is called “Full Circle.” A dozen answers are unclued. How do you take on a puzzle like this? Get as many of the regularly-clued answers as you can and hope they give you enough intersecting letters for you to get some of the unclued answers. Then those might help with the rest of the regular ones. I couldn’t figure out the theme connecting the unclued answers until I was nearly through with the entire grid.
And on top of that Mark Halpin has a Sondheim-themed puzzle called “There’s Always a Woman.” These are good puzzles, not impossibly difficult, but hard enough that getting all the themework done gives you a real sense of accomplishment.
Straight cryptics? Hex have you covered in the National Post (blogged quickly by Falcon, who is going off on vacation), while Fraser Simpson’s weekly puzzle is in the Globe and Mail.
This week’s New York Times variety puzzle (behind the paywall) is a Hex acrostic. Deb Amlen felt like getting a drink when she was through with it. That sounds like a good idea.
