Canes split home-and-home; Scrabble tourney a bust

On Friday night, the Canes won the front end of a home-and-home with the Caps. In rather decisive fashion. Viva led the way with two goals and an assist in a 6-2 rout of the visitors.
However, the tables turned the next night when the Caps beat the Canes in decisive fashion in the MCIVerizon Center. On Saturday night, Alexander Semin led the way for the Caps with two goals in a 7-3 romp. Viva added another goal to his total, giving him 26 on the season.

The Canes will take on the Leafs tomorrow night in the RBC Center.

I didn't watch any of that action because of my Scrabble tournament. I went into the tourney as the #1 seed in the lowest division and a good chance to take home as much as $700 cash money. I had the option of "playing up" into the next division where I wouldn't have a chance of winning prize money, but would be able to improve my rating if I won a few games. Instead I opted for the chance to make the dough.
I made the wrong choice.

One of the perils of playing in the low division is that you know absolutely nothing about the newcomers. A player with no rating and no history is a wildcard. Usually, you can bet that they're going to be mediocre at best, and once in a while there's a rock star who just happens to be playing in his first tournament. In this tournament, there were THREE of those "rockstar" types. I played all three and lost to all three. One player was way out of my league and he ended up killing the rest of the field for a 13-1 record and a point spread of +1700. The others were good players who I might beat half of the time. I didn't.

After the first day, I was 2-1 looking decent with a +200 spread. After the first half of day two, I was 5-2 with a spread of +400. Still okay. After that, though, it all went downhill. I lost to a much improved player who I have beaten with ease before. I lost to one opponent twice, including a savage beating in the final game where I lost by more than 200 points.

I had one other loss to another newcomer who had a very good game that time. We played four other times "for fun" during off-hours and I beat her each time.

I ended with a 7-7 record and a cumulative point spread of -52. Sucks. Instead of winning some jingle, my rating is going to be in the can, and I won't be able to get out of this low division for some time.

Two good things happened. At the very last second, someone with a rating of 899 jumped in, knocking me from the #1 seed to #2. I played him and beat him, which might be a saving grace for my rating.

The other is that during one of those "off hours" games, one of the players in the top division came by, observing our game. It was kinda weird because he would stand behind me, then behind my opponent, occasionally muttering "You missed a bingo". He complimented my play a few times and was especially congratulatory when I found
STHENIA

hooking the E to the end of something already on the board. He said "Beautiful, beautiful play. Pretty as a picture!" For the record, there's only one other seven letter word in that group of letters, and it's
SHEITAN
My play was for more points, and honestly, it was the only one of the two that I could remember. It wasn't my highest scoring play of the weekend, but it was probably the prettiest, and by far the most uncommon.

Don't ask me what it means. I don't know. I know only that it can take an A on the front and/or an S on the back. I was just happy that I could remember it from my studies and that a very highly rated player saw it and was impressed by it.

Anyway, I haven't even looked at the DVRs of the hockey games, and I might not ever get a chance to. I'm back in the real world now.

My hockey life resumes Tuesday night with the aforementioned home game against the Leafs