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Back to 2005 Canadian National SCRABBLE® Championship Live Coverage

2005 Canadian National SCRABBLE® Championship Commentary: Registration

Congratulations to the first-ever two-time Canadian Champion, Adam Logan!

Go to: Registration, Round 1, Round 2, Round 3, Round 4, Round 5, Round 6, Round 7, Round 8, Round 9, Round 10, Round 11, Round 12, Round 13, Round 14, Round 15, Round 16, Round 17, Round 18, Final Round 1, Final Round 2, Final Round 3, Final Round 4, After the Finals.

Registration

At 8:00 this morning, the on-time staff arrived at The Great Hall to prepare for the event registration and set up. John Chew, already up for several hours by then, was across town at the BreakfastTelevision set of CityTV. His appearance, this year, was at 8:15 with show cohost Liza Fromer. Two years ago, John met with Liza and he anagramed her name on air (FORMALIZER), and this year, she wanted to win. So, she picked seven tiles out of the bag, showed her rack to the television camera (and thus all the viewers) and asked them to e-mail her the play they thought she should make. So, in essence, it was everyone in the greater Toronto area versus John Chew. Nothing like being on the spot. She opted to open with TONNE for 12. With a rack of AIIIPVS, John responded by playing SPAVIN to the second N in her play for 22. Fromer challenged, and found the definition in an OSPD4: a disease of horses. Television being what it is with compressed time, those were the only two plays made in their game, making John the victor, 22-12. Next time, they might make it to the game's halfway point!

Mad Palazzo, CSNC assistant director, managed to register nearly all the players single-handedly in the venue's Conversations room, overlooking bustling Queen Street West below. In addition to the standard event player scorecard, each player received a black golf shirt designed by Hasbro Canada with the official SCRABBLE^® logo displayed tastefully to the right of the front button placket, a SCRABBLE^® pen, and a nifty tin that contains a commemorative flat SCRABBLE^® set with blue wooden tiles and heavy metal gold racks.

As players arrived, they gathered in the Conversations room for coffee, juice, muffins, and croissants, provided by Hasbro Canada. It isn't often that these players, ranging from the extreme ends of Canada, get a chance to mingle, so there were hugs and laughs and handshakes all over.

At 9:15, John Chew, clad in white dress shirt with a navy SCRABBLE^® tie (the best one I've seen yet!), got on the microphone and commenced the day's activities. Since first round pairings had been up since last night, players knew where to sit and everyone settled in for the pre- tournament announcements. For the first time in the five years that this event has been held, John was able to introduce and welcome the president of Hasbro Canada. Wiebe Tinga, took to the stage and spoke about his longtime association with Hasbro (he's worked for the company for 18 years, this past year as president of Hasbro Canada). His love of games came through and he admitted that though he liked SCRABBLE^®, he was probably most fond of Risk. He spoke about Hasbro's love of SCRABBLE^® and mentioned several top executives within the Hasbro family who played SCRABBLE^® fervently. Clearly demonstrating that he'd spent some time with the event press packet, the new president mentioned with pride that all four of the CNSC's past champions were here playing this year (Ron Hoekstra (Kentwood, MI), Adam Logan (United Kingdom), David Boys (Dorval QC), and Joel Wapnick (Montréal QC)), that a total of 16 players had been at the previous four championships and were here again, that there were 10 first-time players, and that we were lucky enough to have representatives from 7 provinces in attendance this year. He also tipped his hat to the two players who are now residing in the U.S. and the one player living in England.

Wiebe Tinga saved a special nod of encouragement for fellow Dutchman, Ron Hoekstra (Kentwood, MI), who he encouraged to do well in the event.

Then it was time for John to take over the microphone again. Knowing that he was onto the "business" end of the pre-tournament chat, John said, "that concludes the entertaining part of the announcements, now to the boring stuff... " John encouraged the players to interact with the media present (there are representatives from Toronto Sun, Toronto Star, CityTV, and SportsNet already this morning!) and "make us proud." More paperwork minutae and then the event commenced.

Adam Logan (United Kingdom) faced off against Lynda Wise (Toronto ON) at table 1 perched in front of the black velvet curtain on the stage. Trevor Sealy (Oshawa ON) got to play Joel Wapnick (Montréal QC), so the stress was high right away for a few players.

HASBRO is the owner of the registered SCRABBLE^® trademark in the United States and Canada. © 2005 HASBRO. All rights reserved. "SCRABBLE Brand Crossword Game" is the proper way to refer to this unique group of word games and related properties marketed by HASBRO. "SCRABBLE" is not a generic term. To use it as such is not only misleading but also does injustice to the company responsible for the trademark's longtime popularity. All we ask is that when you mean SCRABBLE Brand Crossword Game, you say so. 

The SCRABBLE^® trademark is owned by J.W. Spear and Sons, PLC, a subsidiary of Mattel, Inc. outside of the United States and Canada. 

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