Tricky Words in this week's OVI

The Slovak "hetrik" comes from the English expression "hat-trick". I've explained this one before, about a year ago in fact, but "practice makes perfect", and it's a good story, so I think I'll just go through it again. What is well known is that the expression refers to the feat (an unusually impressive achievement, which is why it's called a "trick") of the same team winning three championship titles in a row, or the same player scoring three goals in one match.
What is not so well known is that the idea of the HAT comes from the game of cricket. The bowler (the player who "throws" the ball) used to wear a hard, round, black hat (a bowler hat, which later became the stereotype London businessman's hat) for protection, and a bowler who takes three wickets (hits the sticks behind the batsman, putting him out of the game) with three successive balls, wins a new hat from his club, which is quite a good trick too.

ANDY'S WORDSHOP

More about Hromnice, the originally pagan (pohanské) celebration on February 2nd. That day marks the middle of the winter season, which encouraged ancient peoples (národy) to look forward to springtime, especially the first thunderstorm, which was the sign of the end of winter. Reaching midwinter also made people wonder how long winter would go on, and with true awareness of Murphy's first law they decided that if the weather was fine on that day, then winter would be colder for longer.
February 2nd is known as Groundhog Day in the USA. Groundhog (or marmot) means "svišť", and the belief is that if a groundhog sees its shadow in midwinter, it will return to its burrow ("nora") for six more weeks. The biggest Groundhog Day festival takes place in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where the groundhog is called Punxsutawney Phil. He stars together with Bill Murray in the 1993 film called Groundhog Day.