Monday, November 30, 2020, Emma Craven-Matthews

0:04:15

A tribute puzzle for America's Hat, the Great White North, CANADA! Did you ever wonder how they came up with the country's name? Well, the story I heard is that somebody put all the letters into a hat, and then one person picked one letter at a time and shouted it out - "C, eh, ... N, eh, ..." 

I yearn, you yearn, we all yearn for a coffee URN!

 

So anyhoo, now that you've got that little SCENARIO in your head, we can talk about all the references to Cold Mexico that Ms. Craven-Matthews managed to cram into her Monday debut. There's the capital, OTTAWA, the country itself, also playing the part of revealer, and then a lovely pinwheel of four stereotypically Canadian things - HOCKEYNIGHT (think "Football Night in America," but with skates), TIMHORTONS (think Dunkin' with better coffee and greasier doughnuts), MAPLESYRUP (think Vermont, but even farther north), and SAYINGSORRY (there's no American equivalent). 

In addition to all that "official" theme material, Ms. Craven-Matthews managed to spruce up four more otherwise bland entries with references to Canadia: "D.C. player, formerly a Montreal Expo (NAT), "Toronto-to-Montreal dir." (ENE), "N.Y. airport with many flights to Toronto Pearson" (LGA), and "Weather often associated with Vancouver" (RAIN) (Well, it is home to the Great Bear Rainforest!)

Overall, I liked the clueing (any reference to Zeno of ELEA is ok by me), but I don't really think "Some brandy fruits" is perfect for APRICOTS. As I understand things, brandy isn't made from APRICOTS. Shouldn't the clue be something more like "Some brandied fruits?"

But maybe they do things differently up North, and I don't want to ALIENATE any Canuckleheads, obviously, so I guess I'd better wrap this up. On the whole, I thought it was a beauty.

- Horace