New season (Sunday brunch: October 12, 2014)

While my hockey season started last month, the NHL had its opener this past week (and the Flyers are winless in 3)  A few rules changes were made, most of them pretty minor.

• Larger area where the goalkeeper can handle the puck (an easing of the Marty Brodeur rule).
• Wider spacing of the hashmarks where wingers line up on a face-off (will lessen interference).
• New fines for players who dive or act like they’re hurt in order to draw a penalty against an opponent.
• Face-offs will no longer go out to the neutral zone when a shot is deflected out of the rink.
• A change to face-off procedures to keep teams from stalling after an icing violation.
• Tripping will now be called when a player takes out an opponent with his body or arm, even if he contacts the puck first.
• More situations where the league office can use video replay for goal/no-goal calls.
• Automatic suspension for two game misconducts involving physical fouls.   
• Changes to overtime procedures: a dry scrape of the ice before OT and teams change ends. 
• The “spin-o-rama” move is now outlawed on penalty shots.

Care for opinions? Retired NHL referees Kerry Fraser and Paul Stewart have blogged on the new rule.  Care for puzzles?  Look below.

Our regular cryptics are in the Globe and Mail (watch out for a British degree in 25a) and the National Post.

The Wall Street Journal has a novel Patrick Berry crossword called Changing Direction.  Amazing are the ideas he comes up with.

The New York Times has a Split Decisions by Fred Piscop, blogged (with spoilers) by Deb Amlen.  I just can’t get into those.  

Wall Street Journal solution: Oct. 11, 2014

Below the fold is the solution to this weekend’s Wall Street Journal variety puzzle: Changing Directions by Patrick Berry.

[post back-dated to keep Sunday brunch on top]

Straight vs. Variety (Puzzle no. 3,340)

While Hot and Trazom have occasionally constructed some variety cryptics for The Nation (for which they’ve been thanked with gripes by a few solvers), the The Nation puzzle is usually a straight cryptic.  That’s not to say there won’t be a few twists now and then.

Where do you draw the line between straight and variety cryptics?  I’d put it at making alterations to the clues before you solve them, or making alterations to the answers before you enter them.  Another definition might be that if you have to give special instructions to the solver, that apply to that specific puzzle, it's a variety cryptic.

That still leaves plenty of opportunity for constructors to be inventive within the straight cryptic format.  Cross-references are probably the most common such element.  They’re quite common at the Financial Times and other British puzzles (including LizR’s). Sometimes they provide an opportunity to group answers together around a theme (which is usually made apparent in one of the clues–to by custom one of the last acrosses); other times they’re just a chance for some different wordplay.

3,337 was one of those, and I don’t think I’m giving anything away by noting there happen to be a lot of arabic numbers showing up in the clues this week.  It’s up to you to figure out what the connection is, but if you’ve done cryptics for a while and consider wordplay to be an exercise essential to good health, you should be able to get it.  If not, use the crossing letters to work out those answers with numbers in their clues, and then look at the cross-referenced answer.

I'll be back with the solution Monday.  See you this weekend for Sunday brunch.

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/181893/puzzle-no-3340

Difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle):  Hard, getting somewhat easier once you figure out the cross-references.

Hozom’s comment: “Interview With a Fiend,” in which Hot and Trazom introduce us to the solvers who give us Diary of a Crossword Fiend (www.crosswordfiend.com), a site devoted to the major daily straight crosswords in America.  Amy Reynaldo is the proprietress, and she’s been at it for close to a decade.  Over the years, she’s assembled a team of kindred spirits and created a pretty distinct identity for her blog.  We learn that cryptics aren’t in their future, but that’s what Sunday Brunch is for.

Weekly cluing challenge:  BLOGGER

“E” is for Encore (Solution No. 3,339)

The solution to The Nation puzzle no. 3,339 is below the fold.

If you were following this blog a year ago, you will recall Sabers winning a Philly Cup tournament, and with it an "E" rating from the US Fencing Association.  Well it turned out a few weeks later, when we didn’t ever get confirmation of the rating, that the host club had not properly renewed their sanctioning paperwork for the new season, and as a result, the tournament, its results, and Sabers’ rating were all annulled.  Ever since, he’d been looking for a chance to re-win the "E."

That chance came Sunday.  While the lineup included a hotshot from New Jersey who won last week’s youth event, Sabers went in as the favorite for a change.  He took care of business in the preliminary round, losing only one bout (by one touch to a high-schooler from the Panthers club) and earning a bye to the semifinals.  There he had a comfortable win against a rookie who had upset the Panthers fencer in the quarters.  Meanwhile, the Jersey kid won his semi.  

Between warm-ups (one of the good parts of the sport is how fencers can support and help each other one moment, then turn around and compete the next) and the preliminary bout, Sabers had figured out  this particular opponent and had a game plan: defend his initial attack (either with a parry or distance), and catch an easy riposte.  Brainwork rather than a physical battle.  It worked well, but the opponent changed his timing and got a couple of favorable calls from the referee to take an 8-6 lead at the halfway break.

Tweaking his strategy during the break, Sabers threw a feint into his defense to slow things a little more.  The kid’s attacks started to fall short again, and Sabers got three easy touches and the lead. After that, it was a cruise to the finish with four chances for the winning point–comfortable enough for his old man to get video of the victory.  15-12 final, and this one they won’t take away.

No gold medals or official ratings for finishing this puzzle, but the smarter solvers who can anticipate Hot and Trazom’s moves will feel good about themselves.  I especially liked the three-part clues and other misdirections.

Personal best (Sunday brunch: October 5, 2014)

This morning, Bangle skated at the USFSA South Atlantic Regional: the first step on the road to nationals and her first competition far enough away to have to go by plane.  Seeing as how it was only her third competition at this level (Intermediate: step 6 out of 9 from beginning official competition to the senior (Olympic) level and she’d jumped two levels in less than a year, expectations were modest. (It also helps that we try not to be parents from hell).  The main goal of the trip was for Bangle to get experience at a big-time event like this and to gain confidence that she belonged at this level.

With that in mind, she got the job done.  She didn’t get enough points to move on (she was 13th out of 18 with the top four advancing), but she beat her personal best by more than 4 points.  She landed five double jumps and had no falls.  And with the Olympic judging system, she has a detailed readout of each element in the program and how the judges saw it.  That will help shape the plan for the next year’s training, so next year she can have a shot at advancing.

Falcon reports that he’s had to step up his game to solve the National Post cryptic (it’s been a bit harder than usual the last few weeks), but he’s up to it.  Are you?

Hex also have a variety cryptic in the Wall Street Journal.  It too was a little harder than most WSJ variety puzzles, but you can solve it if you have a little persistence.

The New York Times variety puzzle is a Hex cryptic.  Deb Amlen blogs it at Wordplay, reporting that it didn’t quite mesh with her knowledge.

Richard Maltby offers a Playfair Square in Harper’s.  The cryptic part is easy (compared to other Maltby puzzles): now I have to figure out the code.

Junior high (puzzle no. 3,339)

Let’s try and get back towards something resembling a normal schedule.  Hot and Trazom are up to puzzle no. 3,339.  I liked this one: a couple of twists made it harder than usual, but nothing unfair.  If you’ve been doing these for a while, you won’t be too surprised.

Meanwhile, Bangle’s junior high open house was Monday  I had not met her English teacher before, though he taught Sabers when Sabers was in eighth grade.  This particular teacher likes to teach vocabulary by playing with words, especially their roots, so of course I passed along a link to Kegler’s page and the puzzles there that were constructed by and/or for middle-schoolers.

One unexpected way that I think cryptics benefit your brain (and your writing) is the variety of indicators you’ll see.  Constructors love to hide the ball, so variety in indicators is a must.  Seeing more of them will expand your options, particularly for action words, when writing.

Link to puzzle: http://www.thenation.com/article/181805/puzzle-no-3339

Difficulty (by standards of this weekly puzzle):  Hard.  I got off to a good start top left, but hit a bit of a roadblock, exacerbated by the relatively low interconnectedness of the grid this week.  But on my second pass through, I got a couple of the answers that had been vexing me

Hozom’s comment: “A League of Our Own,” in which Hot and Trazom introduce us to the National Puzzlers’ League, and to The Enigma, their magazine, which includes cryptics from a variety of interesting constructors as well as other puzzles that may catch your interest.  One more thing about the NPL site, is that it includes a comprehensive list of members and their noms, frequently with explanations of their derivation.  So you can see what makes Hot Hot and makes Trazom Trazom (the Word Salad post tells you the noms of a few other prominent constructors).  

Weekly cluing challenge:  ENGIMA

Back with the solution Monday, and yes, there will be Sunday brunch this weekend!   

Driver ed (Solution no. 3,338)

Solution and annotation to The Nation puzzle No. 3,338 below the fold.

Sabers and I were late to orchestra today.  A tree fell onto our usual route, and then when we got to the highway on the detour route, there was a multi-car accident right in front of us.  After a half hour going nowhere, the road was reopened, and about three or four miles down the way was an overturned car by the side of the road (looks like the passengers were OK).

Driver ed lesson for Sabers: light rain is dangerous—it makes roads more slick than heavy rain does. Longer following distances, no sudden lane changes.