New York Times, Wednesday, November 9, 2016

The phrase "cool your jets" popped into my head one day and I liked its old-timey feel. It's something I imagine my Dad saying (perhaps punctuated with a "buster") and I thought it would be fun to get it into a puzzle. After misses with a couple other themed puzzles including this entry, I hit success with this one. This one's for you, Pop.

Playing with team names is not novel, of course, so I tried to get as tight a theme as possible, getting one entry from each of the four major sports (sorry, MLS, I wasn't ambitious enough to cram in five theme entries) and cluing each entry with the "Coach…" motif. I'm a longtime assistant football coach, having received many requests over the years, so I imagined the context to be a head coach talking to an assistant, though others may read it differently.

Hope folks enjoy this one. Wondering if this puzzle was at all timed to run because of 10-Down…

I like themes reinterpreting snappy phrases in a kooky way. Fun to get ones like BRING THE HEAT = directive about the Miami HEAT NBA team.

COOL YOUR JETS was my favorite (per John's comments, I wonder if this makes me old ...), as it evoked an image of the coach turning the tables on his players, dumping icy Gatorade all over them. CATCH SOME RAYS also amused, making me imagine an enforcer trying to round up man-children sneaking out of their hotel rooms to go have some fun.

The only one I hitched on was COUNT THE STARS. At first, I wondered if this puzzle used a different theme type, perhaps where two words are switched in a phrase? But STAR THE COUNTS isn't anything. Took me a while to realize that some people lie outside and literally COUNT THE STARS. It still doesn't register as a beautiful phrase to my ear, but it does seem valid. Kind of a shame that it kicked off the puzzle, rather than getting tucked away in the middle. It also would have been nice to avoid two phrases with THE (COUNT THE STARS and BRING THE HEAT). I liked the diversity of YOUR and SOME in the middle of the other themers.

With four themers, I always expect a few bonuses in the rest of the puzzle, and John doesn't disappoint. singing DON'T. STOP. thinking about tomorrow, don't. stop. DAMMIT JOHN NOW I CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT DON'T STOP! Earworm aside, I loved that, ART CRITIC, POWER SUIT which sounds like some futuristic exoskeleton, the full COCA COLA, even PHOEBE and OH SNAP! Great stuff packed in, JOYOUS!

Not too much crossword glue, either. ISLIP seems esoteric to me, but New Yorkers probably disagree. HALAL might be tough, but I think it's perfectly fair. So really just some ASTR and that bottom right corner, what with STET, CEE, UIES, HST. They're all minor — and some would argue all of them are perfectly fine — but what a pile-up. Still, I do like how they made POWER SUIT and JOYOUS possible.

Fun puzzle, perfectly pitched (groan) for a Wednesday.