Jazdarehee tops Heat surname skirmish

Wednesday December 5th, 2012

KELOWNA, B.C. - With the Heat teams now on a break in their playing schedules for exams, we're already antsy for competition to resume. While we can't make time go by faster, we have put the teams back into competition...in a way. In fact, we've pitted your Heat athletes against each other in the most unlikely of ways: Scrabble!

"We've taken the last name of each Heat varsity athlete and calculated what each would score in a game of Scrabble if each last name were a valid word," explains UBC Okanagan student Jesse Matthews, a competitive tournament Scrabble player who is currently ranked 5th in British Columbia and placed 10th at the 2011 Canadian National Scrabble Championship.

Top honours go to women's basketball freshman Jessica Jazdarehee (Guard, Coquitlam, BC), whose surname would score an amazing 30 points! (8 + 1 + 10 + 2 + 1 + 1+ 1 + 4 + 1 + 1 = 30) Runner up goes to men's soccer striker Nicholas Gonzalez (3rd year, Surrey, BC), with whom a whopping 27 points (2 + 1 + 1 + 10 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 10 = 27) would be possible. Rounding out the podium is fourth year men's basketball guard Landry Ndayitwayeko (Windsor, ON), who would supply a sizzling 26 points (1 + 2 + 1 + 4 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 1 + 4 + 1 + 5 + 1 = 26) to your score.

Standing in a league all his own is men's golf's Michael Lee, who not only would provide the lowest score with his last name (1 + 1 + 1 = 3), but also would be the most likely of all of the last names to be played in a game of Scrabble.

We've broken down the top three scoring surnames by sport for your enjoyment, and added some head coach competition into the mix. Check it out below:

Good luck on your exams and happy holidays!