NHL Trivia

hockey playerWho holds the record for the longest winning streak in the NHL?

The Pittsburgh Penguins hold this record with an astounding 17 game winning streak. They set this record in the 1992-93 season. The team was coached by Scotty Bowman with Craig Patrick as the general manager. The team completed the regular season with a 56-21-7 and won the President’s Trophy which is given to the team who has the most points at the end of the regular season.

It was announced during the season that team Captain Mario Lemieux was suffering from Hodgkin’s disease, which forced him to miss 24 games during the regular season and the all star game. Despite this, he won both the Art Ross Trophy for having the most points (160) in the regular season and  he would also win the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player. Mario also lead his team in goals (69) and assists (91) and had an amazing +55. Goalie Tom Barrasso had 43 wins and a 3.1 goals against average for the season. Continue reading

Scrabble Trivia

One of the best known board games in the world is Scrabble. There have been more than 150 million copies of this game sold throughout the world. It has been used for years by many countries to help students to learn English. Scrabble has not only been made available in countless countries, it is available in many different formats. There are travel versions, computer versions and even Braille versions of this fun word game.

Scrabble is played on a square board with 15 spaces across and 15 down, there are 225 squares on the board. When the game was first played you did not use a board, you only had the tiles.

The highest known score for a single word is 392. The word used by Dr. Saladin Khoshnaw in 1982. The word was craziques which means Indian Chief.

There are 100 tiles in the original game. If however, you are playing the game in either Portuguese or Italian there are 120 tiles. Continue reading

Monopoly Game Trivia

monopoly housesThe biggest sell board game in history is the game of Monopoly. Monopoly has been on the market for over sixty years and has sold more than 200 million copies all over the world. It has been estimated that more than 500 million people have played the game.

The longest game of monopoly lasted for 1 680 hours. The longest game of monopoly in a bathtub went on for 99 hours. Monopoly records also include monopoly played upside down 36 hours, in a tree house 286 hours and underground 100 hours.

Parker Brothers started making Monopoly in 1935. There have been more than 200 million games sold around the world.

Monopoly is printed in 37 different languages and is available in 103 different countries.

The cartoon man on the box is actually named Mr. Monopoly. He used to be called Uncle Rich Pennybags. The policeman on the board is Officer Malloy. Officer Malloy is the one responsible for sending Jailbird Jake to prison. Continue reading

Board Game Trivia

a variety of board gamesBoard games have been played for thousands of years. Almost every ancient culture played some kind of game. Games can be as easy as Tic Tac Toe or as complex as Risk. Games can be strategy oriented, luck based or a combination of the two. They have steadily grown in popularity over the years as more and more people have the leisure time to enjoy them and also because they are becoming more available and there is a much greater variety. There is a game for everyone.

Senet may be the world’s oldest board game. The first known record of this game dates back to about 3500BC. It was played in the area which would later become ancient Egypt.

The Jiroft civilization, which was an early bronze age civilization, is also known to have board games. This culture was located in the area which is now Iran. Their games date back to 3500BC.

Senet games were often found in the tombs of ancient Egyptians. The Senet game board is made up of a grid of 30 squares, 3 rows by 10 columns. The actual rules of the game are unknown, but their have been many suggested theories as to how it might have been played. Continue reading

What is Scrimshaw?

The Surface of a Bone

Scrimshaw is the traditional art of drawing or etching on bone or ivory. The most notable people who practiced the art of scrimshaw were whalers and the Inuit. Sailors on board whaling ships often did scrimshaw as a way to pass the time on long voyages.  Most of the early scrimshaw done by whalers portrays maritime life. Inuit people would depict scenes of their daily lives, their hunts and their activities.

Whalers would primarily use needles to do their scrimshaw, and most of their work was done on whale teeth and bone. Whale bone and teeth were obviously easy to come by and were not a valuable part of the catch. Early whalers were killing whales for the oil and not for the teeth or bone.

Once the sailor had his design etched, he would then darken it by using either tobacco juice or soot. Many of the early designs lacked detail, and the execution was not very good. This could be because most of the work was done aboard ship and often at night by small lanterns. Today’s Today, artists do not have to contend with unpredictable seas or winds. They not only work with  good lighting but also often use a magnifying glass to help with really detailed areas.

Scrimshaw is different from carving in the way that it is done. Carving is done, for the most part, with knives whereas scrimshaw is done using needles. A person who does scrimshaw is called a scrimshander.

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