Tregetour: Mario the Magician

Mario Lemieux, a modern-day tregetour, could deke many a defensemen with his slight of stickhandling.

Wallydraigle and Wishful Thinking: Wordnik WOD

Sometimes I wish I were the wallydraigle of my hockey-loving family—for baby brothers seem to inherit the lion's share of athletic talent—but I reckon being first-born has its merits, too.

Florid: Seamus, Sweat, and Superior

His face florid after an hour-long work-out, Seamus J. O'Sheehan's confidence swelled as he realized he would be ready for tomorrow night's hockey game in Wisconsin, against the Superior Sturgeons.

Yawp: Benoit Bemoans

Benoit, tired of the seemingly purposeless skating drills, slapped his stick on the ice and yawped: "When do we get to play hockey, Coach?"

Welkin: Welcome to Heaven, Gráinne

When Gráinne, a selfless volunteer and devoted mother, passed away, those who knew her well heard the welkin ring as their friend, their mother, their champion passed through Heaven's gates.

Vanward: A Fictional Account

Seamus J. O’Sheehan, a vociferous reader even at nine years old, found the fourth-grade reading material at St. Kevin’s Catholic School uninspiring, but he reckoned he could convince Ms. Donnelly, the school librarian, to provide him more vanward books like Island of theBlue Dolphins.

Luciferin and Enlightenment

Fireflies and jellyfish reveal themselves just as the universal luciferous power that whispers to us the truth of things.

Tertiary: WordSmart

Benoit's hat trick might have earned him First Star of the Game honours had it not been for his goalie, who stopped all 57 shots, and his linemate, who scored four goals; the media thus awarded Benoit  tertiary acclaim.

Deflagrate: The Great Fire of 1892

A month without much rain, a high westerly wind, and weak water main pressure were trigger points in a 1892 fire, when a spark of dubious origin ignited a stable and then proceeded to deflagrate St. John's, Newfoundland.

Skirl: Sweet Music

Nova Scotia is not so far away that I can almost see the "new world Gaels," their convex cheeks puffing life into their bagpipes as they synchronize my soul with the skirl of "Amazing Grace."

Quatorze Juillet: Oxford English Disctionary

Quatorze Juillet, Bastille Day, La Fête Nationale: No matter the title of this French national holiday, parades and fireworks are among the festivities that commemorate this day in 1789 in Paris, when a mob of angry demonstrators morphed into a revolutionary force and overran the Bastille garrison.

Silly Season: A Fictional Account

Benoit's intermittent alcohol-induced behavior, which transformed a shy teetotaler into an outlandish drunkard, lasted two years—a period he would later refer to as his silly season.

Tucket: A Poem

A departure from the sentence, but to not dismayI crafted a poem for today's Word of the Day

There lived a kind trumpeter on the isle of Nantucket
He stood on the dunes, tooting mellow tunes
While his son shoveled sand into a bucket
Then a friend from Methuen, carrying balloons
Hiked onto the scene, with a smile so serene
The trumpeter welcomed him by blaring a tucket

Sciential

The Internet affords the erstwhile novice novelist a a sciential pool of opportunties to fortify his stories with credible content.

A Triumvirate of Terms

While I was unplugged and on vacation in New Brunswick, PEI and the Magdalen Islands, I missed the challenge of infusing my vocabulary with an Internet-generated word-of-the day. I did, however, bolster my Atlantic Canada vernacular by reading Wayne Johnson's, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams.

A triumvirate of terms I plucked from Johnson's novel about Newfoundland's first premier, Joe Smallwood, and the history of this colony/country/province:

syllogism: a crafty argument
dory: short, flat-bottomed boat with high flaring sides
confederation: alliance

Tempers flared, like the sides of dories, as politicians and all manner of pundits cast their syllogisms in favor and against Newfoundland's proposed confederaton with Canada.