It's intern season here in Washington, D.C., and like so many other locally-based organizations, Off Wing was inundated with applications for our Summer editorial intern program. Having graduated our first pair of interns (Joe Dumas and Kate McGovern) for the 2006-07 academic year, word of the Off Wing program spread across the Web drawing inquiries from as far away as Northern Finland.
Unfortunately, with only one slot available, I needed to create a device to help me separate the wheat from the chaff, and select the one intern who could make the biggest impact at Off Wing while experiencing the most professional growth.
That device is below: The Off Wing Hockey Blogging Intern Test. 15 minutes were given to answer as many, or as few, of the following questions in the time allotted.
With the exception of one question, the quiz was administered pre-ARPANET style, without the use of computers or wireless devices.
My hope is that like our guidelines to help teams choose which bloggers to work with, this test will have wider application outside of Off Wing.
Questions after the jump.
General Hockey Knowledge
Why is Don Cherry called Grapes?
What came first, Monday Night Football or Hockey Night in Canada?
If you visited the Stanley Cup's hometown, where would you be?
In what year was O Canada adopted as that nation's official national anthem?
When did the NHL first put names on the back of player jerseys and why?
What piece of ethnic weaponry is used to describe a tactic to foil a defensive trap like the left wing lock?
Complete the analogy: Willi Plett is to the Atlanta Flames as ____________ is to the Minnesota North Stars.
On December 26 1979, a group of Boston Bruins players climbed into the Madison Square Garden crowd after one fan took Stan Jonathan's stick. Confronting one fan, Bruins defenseman Mike Milbury took a shoe from one fan and began beating him with it. What kind of shoe was it?
Puck Bunnies
Carol Alt, Willa Ford, Rachel Hunter, Janet Jones, Elisha Cuthbert -- List these names in the correct chronological order according to their relationships with NHL players and specify players by name.
List these same women in ascending order of attractiveness.
Which of the following women was not romantically linked with Wayne Grezky: Janet Jones, Vicki Moss or Margaret Trudeau?
The phone rings, it's Christy Brinkley. She wants to go to the Islanders game. Do you say yes, or are you totally weirded out by the whole, "old enough to be my Mom" thing?
Cale Hulse and Gina Lee Nolin. Explain.
Yes or No
Ice girls?
Expand the NHL to Las Vegas?
Lou Lamoriello: Good for hockey?
This or That
Sarah Polley or Sarah-Michelle Geller?
Rachel McAdams or Rachel Leigh-Cook?
Karl Malden or Kurt Russell?
Face painting: Nuisance or menace?
IIHF World Championships: Serious or sideshow?
Borje Salming (0 Cups) or Steffan Persson (4 Cups)?
Blogging
You want to link to another blog without helping its Google ranking. What do you do? Please provide an example of the HTML used to implement your solution.
Discuss how widespread implementation of this solution could destroy the hockey blogging community in the manner of the "Tragedy of the Commons".
Hockey blogging can be split into two eras, pre-lockout and post-lockout. Name the three most significant post-lockout hockey blogs and why they qualify.
Which has the greatest power to influence discussion among hockey fans: Message boards, blogs, TSN, ESPN or CBC?
Name the most important non-MSM online hockey publication from the pre-blog era.
Misc. Culture
What's my favorite beer?
The television characters David Aceveda (The Shield) and Tommy Carcetti (The Wire) are thinly veiled portrayals of which two actual politicians?
Which fictional character portrayed on The Shield is more morally reprehensible, Vic Mackey or Shane Vendrell?
What was Chicago actor Jeremy Piven's most triumphant television role?
Is Stacy's mom a hockey fan?
Short Answers
Imagine you're in the world depicted in Scanners, the 1981 sci-fi thriller directed by David Cronenberg. You're on Air Canada flight 455 between Buffalo and Vancouver and you're sitting in between Bill Clement and Brian Engblom. Who is the evil scanner?
It is the start of the 2006-07 NHL season and you are the general manager of a hypothetical expansion team. Using the data at nhlnumbers.com and working with a salary cap of $41.5 million, construct your roster.
Say you're a hotshot 19-year old winger coming out of the OHL and ready to make your debut in the show. You know you could score 50 goals with the right guy watching your back. Off all the enforcers of all time, who do you choose?
Imagine that you're Jim Peplinski and you've just won the Stanley Cup with the 1989 Calgary Flames. Do you kiss Lanny McDonald?
Say there's only one spot on the ballot for the Hockey Hall of Fame, and the two nominees are Luc Robataille and Mike Gartner. Who gets in?
You're the head of marketing for a hypothetical NHL franchise, and you need to hire a team to work your television broadcasts. Among all professionals currently working today at the NHL level, give me your play-by-play, color, on-ice reporter and studio host.
You and your friends get to the bar on Saturday evening around 18:30 p.m. EST. How many Labatts do you drink before Satellite Hot Stove airs in between periods of Game Two of the CBC doubleheader?
You've just completed a hard day at work in Midtown Manhattan and walk to the Madison Avenue Subway stop to get to your home at the end of the line in Queens. The F Train pulls into the station. Do you get on?
March 26, 1997: Explain.
Essay Questions
Who is more evil, Bill Wirtz or Alan Eagleson? Elaborate.
Explain the origin of the three stars of the game.
Before Paul Henderson scored for Canada in 1972, Bobby Clarke violently slashed Valery Kharlamov, essentially ending his role in the Summit Series. Justified or not?
It's June 2008 and you're an attorney representing Rick Tocchet at his reinstatement hearing before NHL disciplinary czar Colin Campbell. What are your top three points in favor of reinstatement outside of "Wayne Gretzky is my best friend"?
Which international hockey tournament has the format that is best able to determine the most superior team?
Who is the more tragic figure, Derek Sanderson or Gord Kluzak? Discuss.
Multiple Choice
Not Swedish:
A. Bobby Nystrom
B. Niklas Backstrom
C. Nicklas Backstrom
When asked to complete a similar questionnaire by U.S. Olympic Head Coach Herb Brooks, Boston University goaltender Jim Craig did the following:
A. Completed the questionnaire in less than an hour.
B. Was the last member of the team to finish it.
C. Worked to answer the questions with the help of Asst. Coach Craig Patrick.
D. Confronted Brooks angrily and refused to complete the test.
I hope you enjoyed taking the test as much as I enjoyed creating it. Applications for the 2007-08 academic year will be accepted after July 1, 2007.
What about Candice Cameron?
Well, I’d much rather study for this than the LSATs!
Did you know that the Three Stars thing wound up inadvertantly putting the kaibosh on an early sponsorship deal between the Oilers and Gulf Oil? (Evidently, before it became clear that HNIC wasn’t going to carry the WHA.) There’s a reason the Oil wore blue and orange until 1996.
Also, “You and your friends get to the bar on Saturday evening around 18:30 p.m. EST. How many Labatts do you drink before Satellite Hot Stove airs in between periods of Game Two of the CBC doubleheader?” It’s actually between the second and third periods of Game One. Scoreboard Saturday is during Game Two’s second intermission. Good trick question, though.
Supplemental question: Which NHL tough guy was once zipped into a spare equipment bag so he could escape a road city?