Now that was a reasonably Saturdayish puzzle! Nice to see you back, Josh!
@Barry Ancona Yes, nice for a change. My time was exactly the average time for xwstats.com at the time, and they called it Hard. Here are the current numbers: 🌎 Global Stats Difficulty Hard Median Solve Time 14:44 Median Solver 8% slower ⚡38% of users solved faster than their Saturday average. 17% solved much faster (>20%) than their Saturday average. 🐢63% of users solved slower than their Saturday average. 46% solved much slower (>20%) than their Saturday average.
@Barry Ancona I mean, not really, but it's about as close as anyone can ask for lately
@Barry Ancona I found it crushingly, panderingly simple, and I'm not in the same league as you guys. Have everyone's expectations been lowered this much? I might be having a particularly good day but it doesn't remotely feel like it. The clues were so plain...
I found this the hardest solve in weeks, if not months.
@Barry Ancona I agree. Not a stumper, not a Highlights magazine, but a Saturday. @B NY For me, it wasn't "crushingly, panderingly simple" as I needed crosses for quite a few (LOUISA, PHX, REID, BODY HORROR and LUMET) and also to help with the longer stacks. So my NW to SE was not fluid, and I had to solve using the whole grid. (Which is what I hope for!)
@Barry Ancona I was busy until now Saturday evening. That was a nice Saturday puzzle. I want to at least have that couple of minutes where I’m thinking I won’t get the NE or the NW sections. I then want to enjoy the insights. I really enjoyed it.
To become a soda manufacturer, you'll have to take a pop quiz. (Don't worry, you'll Crush it!)
@Mike ORANGE crush and REM! "When I tried to tell my story They cut me off to take a break I sat silent five commercials I had nothing left to say"
@Mike Today's comments would not be complete without Mike's FANTAstic homage to 21A.
I was convinced I was going to fail at this one right up until I didn’t. A great puzzle!
Huh, I'd never thought of LOX on latkes. Lox on bagels, yes; latkes get sour cream (or plain yogurt) or applesauce. But it doesn't sound bad, so maybe I'll try it...
@Isabeau Nah, LOX on latkes are as unlikely as PEAs. Applesauce for me, the chunky kind, if you have it; others in my family like sour cream.
@Isabeau Yep I’ve never seen lox on latkes either. AI says it’s common but I don’t believe it, or else it’s some fancy shmancy caterer concoction. It’s sour cream, applesauce or nothing!
@Isabeau. Lox doesn't immediately come to mind for me either, but check out the video clip included with Melissa Clark's late recipe. <a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015533-classic-potato-latkes" target="_blank">https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015533-classic-potato-latkes</a>
@Isabeau Nthing that lox has never been placed on a latke. It simply hasn't happened.
@Isabeau. I’ve never heard of lox on a latke either. These clues need to be realistic at least.
@Isabeau I have in fact made and eaten lox on a latke. Here is a recipe for lox on a slice of potato which gave me the idea of putting it on a mini latke instead. Delicious! <a href="https://toriavey.com/baby-lox-potatoes-appetizer" target="_blank">https://toriavey.com/baby-lox-potatoes-appetizer</a>/
@Isabeau Getting to the comments at 4:15 a.m. meant I had to scroll all the way down to find a comment about LOX on a latke. LOX on a latke had no one, ever. That's like having pastrami on white bread with mayo. I can't even imagine. I even care if Melissa Clark has a recipe for it. It's beyond weird!
@Isabeau Yes. A Gentile must have written this clue. 😉
In previous constructors’ notes, Josh focuses on changes he made in drafts to improve his puzzles. He’s not a “This is good enough” type of puzzle maker, rather, he sets a high bar and sticks to it. Look at today’s puzzle, so polished in answer and clue. I’d like to think he didn’t succumb to making this a pangram, by changing LAV to LAW (the puzzle is only missing a W), as that would have made a wince-worthy cross – OWER. I’d like to think he decided to opt for solver experience over pangram glory. A lovely crop of vague clues today, making many answers un-slap-downable. Clues like [Campaign leader, informally], [Certain slip-on], and others. This engages the brain like a playground engages the body. There's also feel-good. Wordplay such as [Free spirits?] for EXORCISE, and beauty in answers such as BLANK STARE, TACIT, EXOTICA, EXHILARATE, AMBLE, and IRONCLAD. Just a prime Saturday by a talent who puts in the work. Thank you for a splendid outing, Josh.
@Lewis, I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I will reply instead of creating a new comment. Finally, a Saturday-worthy puzzle (or at least a Friday-worthy puzzle, neither one of which we’ve had enough of lately). Maybe the editors are listening after all! This one was slightly over my Saturday average, and about twice my average of late. Just perfect, and exactly what I look forward to all week long. I loved all the clever clueing, misdirects and fun answers. Bravo, Josh, and thank you!
@Lewis I’m not sure how fair Radio Station Trivia is, but I would have been okay with WORMS and WOXY (97X! Bam! The future of Rock & Roll!)
@Lewis In a later post, @abelsey makes a good case for the W in a different part of the grid: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/4e4ns3?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/4e4ns3?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a> Learning from you that the constructor sets himself a high bar — which this puzzle deliciously met! — it seems such a shame to be one letter away from a pangram like that. Perhaps he did so intentionally, an artist leaving in an imperfection to show the hand of the maker...
@Lewis I came here to say the same about LAW and OWER. I would have succumbed, I think.
It took me one hour and eight minutes but I solved it with no lookups and I really really didn't think I could do it. Just got lucky I guess.
@Laura Stratton Not luck—persistence, intuition and brains. Luck would be if you put in random letters and they happened to solve the puzzle.
Found it much easier than yesterday’s but more fun too. My 1000th puzzle according to the app!
@Ben If you found this easier than yesterday’s, I think that’s an IRON CLAD sign that difficulty levels are entirely subjective. This took me a over an hour longer than yesterday’s 😳 Congrats on 1000!
So, POP QUIZ reminded me of a logic paradox. Professor comes to the logic class on Monday and says, “We will be having a POP QUIZ this week. I won’t tell you which day, and I promise it will be a surprise.” The enterprising student thinks for a minute and says to himself, “Well, it can’t be on Friday because if it hasn’t come by Thursday, then we will know it must be on Friday so it won’t be a surprise. But on the other hand, now that we’ve deduced that, then we also know it can’t be on Thursday, because if it hasn’t come by Wednesday and we know it can’t be Friday, then we will know it must be on Thursday and it won’t be a surprise. I can extend the same argument to Wednesday and Tuesday—therefore there’s no day it would be a surprise and the professor must be lying!” So the student smugly deduces, and doesn’t study. Of course, Thursday comes around and the professor says, “Here’s that pop quiz I promised!” And, sure enough, it was a surprise!
@SP A joke in a similar vein: A lazy professor realizes that the final exam of his class is today, and he hasn't yet written the test. So, he goes into the class and writes on the blackboard, "Formulate a question that summarizes the major points we have examined in this class, and answer it." The students all get busy, writing and writing. But one student casually turns in his blue book in just about a minute. The professor asks, "Are you sure you're done?" And the student says, "I'm pretty confident that I've satisfied the requirements. Shaking his head the professor examines the blue book. For the question the student wrote, "Formulate a question that summarizes the major points we have examined in this class, and answer it." For the answer the student wrote, "Formulate a question that summarizes the major points we have examined in this class, and answer it." The professor gave him a B+.
It went pretty smoothly after I reluctantly concluded BANANA wasn't a certain slip-on.
@Kevin Ooh, I wish I'd thought of that one! My partner can't help but make a joke every time he sees a banana peel on the ground: totally groan-inducing!! I have to say, my mind was much more in the gutter, first noticing "rubber" fit, and then when I had _ON___ from the crosses, fearing the more conventional synonym was the answer... PONCHO made me laugh when I finally got it.
@Kevin Mythbusters test banana peels: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZRq3XxCZXo" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZRq3XxCZXo</a>
I thought this was a decent proper Saturday! I was quite EXHILARATEd. I had OPENBARS before EXORCISE too. TIL about BODYHORROR that was new to me! Grateful to KHAN and Sidney LUMET for giving me footholds. Great misdirects and clever clues—smoking spot, key changes, free spirits and more. Please, more of these!
@SP I'm afraid I strongly disagree. Much of the cluing was obvious, dull, and/or trivial. Exactly the watering down we've all been going on about. To do this on a Saturday seems to me a rock bottom. I guess I'm in a minority this time though. Even XWStats is showing "Hard". Must be the smart pills? Or I slipped between dimensions....
@SP They say "Your mileage may vary," but yours and mine are regularly similar.
@SP Did anyone else find this a particularly "itchy" puzzle? Given the EXORCISM, the stinging VESPA, and the BODY HORROR examples of 'the Fly' and 'the Thing', I just want to take a shower and hermetically seal myself in my apartment lest anything crawl in. 《Shudder》
This is one of the hardest crosswords I’ve tried in a long time. I mean, I’m not great at them, but I can usually get to halfway without help. Reckon I got 5 clues this time!
This was what I wanted, a puzzle that was tilted enough, inventive enough, and funny enough to keep me guessing and laughing. Fixed a mistake (thanks, Caitlin) and I was done. Good job, Josh. Don't stay away so long next time!
I rarely post, so I hope Josh is reading this. This is hands-down one of the best puzzles I have experienced, and my most favorite Saturday puzzles of all time. It was a rightful Saturday, IMO - one where you at first feel the puzzle is disjointed and unwieldy, with very little filled in. Then, when you stick with it, and discover also that the Shortz editing wand has bestowed its wizardry, it all magically comes together. Thank you, Josh, for restoring my faith in the Saturday puzzle. You (and Will) have created a masterpiece.
I found this very hard yet ultimately doable without lookups - at over 43 minutes this was my longest solve in weeks, and quite a bit longer than my Saturday average. Initially I had very little in the grid - the SW was first to fall, with much effort, then the NE, the SE after that, and finally the NW. I needed to take a break and let my mind reset to deal with the latter. Most of my entries started out in digital pencil - I was sure of very few things. There were just so many unknowns in the grid for me: LOUISE, New ERA, the Bay of Angels, "The Fisherman and his flute", the topic of Yom Kippur, TSQUARE, chakra locations, Rachel REID and "Heated Rivalry", Mercury of PHX, NYS, ARLENE, and the Chinese symbol of prosperity. Then there was stuff that would have stumped me not so long ago, since I only learned about it from NYT puzzles: LOX and IPHOTO. I had no idea whyd "Clip-on mic, for short" solved to LAV. So far in my experience that word has only been clued as a bathroom. However, for once an unknown of mine was covered by the column - quite the surprise! So yeah, for me this was a proper Saturday challenge. I wonder if EXOTICA even exists any more. In my "communist" era childhood anything from outside the Eastern Bloc was exotic: jeans, oranges, Marlboros, VHS tapes, and so on. These days I can buy anything online... And now for something completely different: Lucek the Poodle would like you to paint him like one of your French girls: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/VDVCbYK" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/VDVCbYK</a>
@Andrzej "...paint him like one of your French girls:" 😂😂😂
@Andrzej You may have already researched this by now, but LAV is short for lavalier, which is a French term for a necklace. So a lav mic is a microphone worn on a necklace chain around the neck.
@Andrzej Your first paragraph describes my solve as well. OK, you beat me by a minute, but still.
@Andrzej Chinese culture loves the number eight! I knew that right away. Good friend who had a big birthday celebration for her 88th -- not waiting for 90th. And the houses in our city are usualy for sale for $x,888,000. Where x is the millions that fit the neighborhood. Schools here are now over 60% Asian. What will happen to Silicon Valley when Trump keeps out all the Chinese and Indian engineers? R&D will move east just as manufacturing did. Is San Jose the next Detroit?
Can NYT start another forum for everyone who wants to post to complain puzzles being easy and/or uninspired? Let the grumps have their own turf please!
@Jesse R. Yesterday was a bit much but normally I find the mix here is just about right. Irrespective of how they are meant, grumpy posts are usually quite amusing and as for the speedsters they’re hilarious. Some of the pedantry is brilliant. It’s a nice forum.
Jesse R., What would *you* like have this forum be ... other than a place to complain about other people's posts?
@Jesse R. Why do meta-complainers - those who complain about others complaining - always assume their complaints are the superior kind? Now, is my complaint about meta-complaints kosher or not?
@Jesse R., But what fun would that be? 😄
Was there ever a grid that told a solving story so well? BLANKSTARE . . .MYSTERYBOX. NOFUN! ROCKBOTTOM. GRIT!!! TRY STARTERKIT . . .TSQUARE . . . UNDID LOX . ..ISEE!! POPTAB - EXHILARATE! JIGS! SOAR! NICE. [and a bonus AESOP tale: TEXMEX TOXICGAS METHANE] Before I INCUR the wrath of emus and KHAN. . .ZIPIT and off to REM. Happy weekend solving!
Lox on a latke? Next you'll be telling me you put apple sauce on your everything bagel! (Just because they call it "everything" doesn't mean you can put everything on it!)
I never thought I'd feel this way, but after all the cyber ink spilling arguing about the difficulty of puzzles, I really miss the arguments over the plural of octopus. I thought this was a reasonably tough puzzle. It took me a shade over an hour, which is two or three times as most Friday/Saturdays have been lately.
@Francis Ha! agree there with ya. Don't forget the TAMAL/TAMALE wars here in El Forum grande. (hee hee!)
Let the octopi have their tamalodes in peace, please.
@Francis At least with the OCTOPODES debates, one could wrangle a smile over the pedantry. The difficulty-groaners just make one sad.
Only disappointed that Right, right, right didn’t solve to left. An excellent puzzle. Only gimmes were AESOP and VESPA (the latter only because I used to go around on one). Liked MESA for flat earth. Thanks
@Ιασων, same here, and I also thought it might be WEST! But I decided the quotation marks invalidated those.
I had “Poker-faced” instead BLANKSTARE, “wily” instead of FOXY, some of the most disastrous wrong turns since the Archduke’s chauffeur took an erroneous route in Sarajevo 1914
Proper Saturday difficulty, and an enjoyable puzzle altogether. Thanks.
After my first pass through I was at ROCKBOTTOM, but after patiently plugging away, a word here, a letter there, I got it together, and was EXHILARATEd (nice stacked pairing by the way). All the Ks, Qs, Vs, Xs, Ys and Zs were fun. Delightful Saturday, tough but fair.
Just when I think I’ve got the hang of each day in crossword land, a puzzle like this says ‘hold my beer’ and wipes the floor with me. I could not get a toe hold anywhere. I’m not sure I’ve had to go straight to Wordplay to even get started before. Other than PUNS, AESOP and LUMET everything else I tried was a big fat no. Finally, with a great deal of help from Ms Lovinger and your good selves I struggled to the finish line. Phew. Not complaining though; it was so full of interesting stuff, with more TILs than I can count that it was a thoroughly EXHILARATING excursion. Once I’d remembered how to spell the above that is. I always forget the H. I’m running the bar at the Hall tonight while we show the Men’s Curling Final. Waving the flag for England 🏴 Let’s hope they perform better than last weeks Rugby.
@Helen Wright So glad to see someone else was watching Olympic curling. It's been a great bonspiel, and great to see another UK/Canada matchup as the men's finale. Our women's bronze was a bit disappointing although wonderful for Rachrl Holman to add an Olympic medal to her already crowded trophy case.
This puzzle wasn’t difficult enough !! I solved it in eight minutes with one hand tied behind my back and both eyes closed !! When will we finally get a real Saturday puzzle ??
@Jeff Ok, I laughed! I'm sure we'll hear some of this, though...
@Jeff Me too. The puzzle could be nothing but Sanskrit puns and there would be complaints that they were more challenging in 1994. Meanwhile, the NE was especially tricky today.
The gold medal goes to REID for the gay hockey romance novels. 🏳️🌈🇨🇦 Go Canada!
@Becky, Really looking forward to the gold medal match on Sunday! 🇨🇦 🇺🇸
Did anyone else have FINGER for “you might hear a hiss when it’s pulled”?
Yes! Yes! Yes! I hope solvers who prefer easier puzzles can forgive my excitement. This was the first puzzle in awhile where I couldn't solve it in a straightforward march through the clues with most of my solve occurring in my second pass through the Acrosses. Very predictable. Today's solve was about as far from predictable as one could get for a themeless. My pathway was loopy. I wish I could draw the most fun one because I think it would have formed a rather elegant baroque design. The access I eventually found into my mostly blank NW started from 30D STARTER KIT but did not progress to AESOP at 29A. Instead it veered eastward to 34A and 39A, then northward up to 12D in the far reaches of that quadrant, then back down to 25A, then back up to 21D, and then back down to AESOP. Finally it found its way up into the NW, continuing to switch between downs and acrosses. I am dizzy. My time was several multiples of the mean at XWStats, as it often is, but I enjoyed every moment.
Now that was a proper Saturday. Tough, meaty, and plenty of misdirects to keep my head proper itchy. Took me the better part of an hour, but entirely gettable without lookups. I had MORTADELLA in 17A for the longest time, and the double BB on 1D was throwing me for six. 64A was great, shoutout COD Zombies for helping me snag that immediately. Didn’t love 19A, but I’ll let it slide as the rest of the puzzle was intelligently assembled. Brava.
@Sam I had MORTADELLA in 17A for a long time, too! NW came together in bits and pieces. Got HORROR right away but BODY eluded me until the end. Inexplicably had SPARE at the end of 1A for the longest time (but blanks for the rest of it), which obviously fouled 7D. Once I gave up on that and TRIVIATEAM materialized, MORTADELLA became QUESADILLA and the dominoes fell. SW hung me up for a while, too. Feel pretty good to have escaped with no lookups, whew!
@Sam I was lucky. All the talk about climate change and greenhouse gases left an impression. (Eeew)
@Sam "...and the double BB on 1D was throwing me for six." First of all, thanks for introducing me to an idiom based on cricket that most of us have never heard of in the US. But I knew what you meant, anyway, and my main point is that one very useful thing that I learned early on in my puzzling days was not to be shaken by odd combinations of letters where they shouldn't be, because the entry may be an acronym or abbreviation.
Good one! I had almost nothing on my first pass, and was thinking “OK looks like it’s payback time for all the ‘these puzzles are too easy’ complainers.” But it turned out to be doable!
The more Xs and Qs I was putting in, the more I was sure I was messing up. But nope. Just a good, sweat it out puzzle.
@Ash That's also how I felt about ZIPIT giving me a 7-letter ending in Z.
I'm definitely not a chemist, nor do I play one on tv, but on my first time around, I plopped METHANE in at 36A. My second time around, I took it out, chiding myself that it couldn't be measured in pounds, surely not! I replaced it with milkfat. Ha! Oh well, it worked itself out, though the upper left was my slowest spot. Felt tougher than we've been getting, so that was good. Finished in about average time. Got a kick out of EXORCISE (though I was hoping there were come complimentary martinis around), QUESADILLA, ROCKBOTTON, POPQUIZ, and MYSTERYBOX. My energy has now officially hit ROCKBOTTOM for the day and week, so I'm going to say g'night! But I am happily doing so because I got my big work project done this morning and have happily turned it over to the next stage!!! Woohoo!!! I'll think about catching up on everything else another day. Now where's that free martini!?
@HeathieJ Only in the US would methane be measured in pounds. Milkfat was a good guess, I'm glad I didn't think of that. But 200 lbs still seems low for milkfat, doesn't it? You're in MN, isn't it a requirement to know these things? ;)
@HeathieJ I strongly recommend against plopping METHANE anywhere, but if you must, I would advise against advertising the fact in the Times.
@HeathieJ, Here you go! On me! 🍸 Congratulations!
Great puzzle! Thought I had no chance after the first pass. Very nice, satisfied feeling (a little fist pump) after completing it in 45 minutes.
Welp....the NE got me. I am grateful that I sussed out most of this very challenging puzzle. (I did think to myself, "Don't I recall this Josh Knapp guy?"...and a shiver went down my spine.) I took out POSSE and put it back a couple of times, Couldn't let go of POLO. FORK for "split in two" was pure evil. I had ORAL and ELK, but it just wasn't enough to tip me off. I finally looked up the author. (I had already had just a ton of fun with 30D, starting with SCALE MODEL, then STARTER SET.) I do protest PEA as a stand-alone; "avocado" does not need "green" added to it, but PEA...! No fair. Ultimately I looked up 11D, and that unlocked the final set of entries. I'll have to settle for being proud of getting the majority of the super-tricky puzzle as I go about my day.... Wow, Josh. Hang this old white head on your trophy wall and smirk at it often.
@Mean Old Lady I was wondering if the avocado/PEA clue was a silent nod to the "pea guacamole" controversy of a few years ago...
I had to deal with a hydrogen sulfide incident in the lab this week. Not fun. This puzzle, on the other hand, was exhilarating!
Yesterday I complained about the easiness of end-of-the-week puzzles. Today, I compliment. This was a very worthy Saturday. Keep 'em coming!
Tell me I’m not the only one who put EROTICA on 40a 🤭 Perhaps I was subliminaly misdirected with the 3 X’s in the puzzle.
@CeCe I spelled EXORCISE with a Z, probably for the same reason. Great clue there, by the way.
Well ok now -- FINALLY a Saturday puzzle worth of being called a Saturday puzzle! Very nice. Very nice indeed!!
Tough but doable. Loved the fill. Always need help with names. Thanks, Josh! Have a great weekend, y’all!
Great Saturday puzzle. The northeast corner was a nightmare for me. I had KIMONO for the slip-on clue and nothing was coming together. Once POSSE occured to me, TSQUARE popped right out and everything fell into place. Ashamed to say I couldn't intuit TSQUARE without the T and the S. My late crossword-loving grandfather was an architect. Hope we don't have to wait another 10 years for a new puzzle from this constructor.
I had to look a few things up. It was a slog for me, but it's good to know that some puzzles will still be a bit difficult, after an easier than average week.
For me any puzzle that has KHAN as an answer as in “The Wrath of” or the original Star Trek series is a good puzzle. Solved it a bit faster than my average for Saturday but not by much. The south west corner fell last especially when I worked out it was EXOTICA not ErOTICA! What was I thinking?
Hello, Saturday! Welcome back! Bide-a-wee, will you?
I have no idea what BODY HORROR is, but it sounds even more horrible than plain old vanilla HORROR -- which I never watch or read or anything. So once I had BLANK STARE, I wondered for, like. forever what B HORROR was. I was sure I'd have to look up the L wife or the A cat, but as it turned out, I never did. I scampered away from the diabolical NW and entered at LUMET -- a name I actually did know. I had trouble everywhere and my solve took forever. But I prevailed. The cluing was wicked. Great clues for TRIVIA TEAM, EXORCISE, EXOTICA and CAR SHARE. But I found easier answers like GRIT, INCUR, TACIT and EIGHT hard to get too because of how they were clued. I have no idea what a MYSTERY BOX is -- even though I ran the Mystery Guild Book Club a long time ago. I wasn't wild about the clue for I SEE. And I didn't know that FORK could be a verb or an adjective -- to me it's always been a noun. ROCK BOTTOM line: I struggled! I suffered! I liked it!
@Nancy I interpreted FORK as in the road.
Nancy, "Two roads forked in a yellow wood..."
@Nancy BODY HORROR got a BLANK STARE from me as well, and I'd seen both of those movies. Maybe it's industry jargon? Aptly, Kafkaesque also has 10 letters.
A puzzle packed with sneaky, crafty clues and unusual letters, everything but the W, if I'm not mistaken, makes for a great Saturday puzzle! This one took some thinking and some help from my husband, the Gameplay column, and the comments, but was doable. I guess after more than a year of consistent crossword solving I am getting better, not necessarily smarter, but better and more willing to know when to look things up. I'm okay with that now. :-) Happy weekend and solving, friends.
Almost everything was hard. But, nothing was impossible. Both the clueing and the fill were fresh and brought many smiles to my hop scotch journey through the grid.
Had almost nothing after the first pass through. Then got blank stare and t square. Just enough to set me started. That's the way it's supposed to go. Thanks for a great Saturday. Don't wait 10 more years to come back...I'm not getting any younger :)
I liked this one and not just because it featured a Nova Scotia author at 41 across. I couldn't complete the puzzle until I gave up on the possibility of a cow producing 200 pounds of milk fat annually. It sounded plausible to me.
Haven’t even finished the puzzle but wanted to give a shout out/congrats to Rachel Reid for making it into the crosswords universe! This fellow Canadian is proud!!!
@Jessica She is having a moment, for sure! I thought it was very cool to see her in the puzzle today. Now hockey, on the other hand... All I can say is I look forward to a great game, no matter the outcome! 🇨🇦🏆🇺🇸