FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE		CONTACT:	DONNA GARBER
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								DONNA PIASENTINI
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CANADA'S FINEST SCRABBLE STAR SHINES 

52-Year-Old Joel Wapnick's Winning Way with Words Earns Him
First Place Prize of $7,000 and World-Class Standing


Today the "Spell-a-bration" begins for Canada's most ingenious
SCRABBLE(R) expert who beat out 49 other elite players in four-days of
board game battles.  His name  Joel Wapnick, a 52-year-old McGill
University music professor from Montreal.  And a man who has emerged
$7,000 richer by winning one of the country's most scholarly showdowns
-- the Second Canadian SCRABBLE(R) Championship, a contest held during
the game's 50th anniversary year.  Wapnick will represent Canada at the
next World SCRABBLE(R) Championship.  His win is all the more
remarkable, given that his opponent drew all ten blanks.

Wapnick was one of 50 highly advanced tournament-ranked players from
across Canada who participated in this fiercely intense war of words
hosted at Toronto's celebrated Arts and Letters Club.   He was pitted
against such SCRABBLE(R) luminaries as the former World, North
American, and Canadian SCRABBLE(R) Champions.

The tournament was organized so that each contender played 18 games of
SCRABBLE(R) over a three-day period in an effort to accumulate points
and qualify as one of the top two finalists.   After securing his spot
as one of these finalists, Wapnick captured the SCRABBLE(R) title this
morning by winning three games out of a best of five round against
Albert Hahn, a 50-year-old truck driver from Calgary.   During his
final three winning games, Wapnick tallied impressive scores of 432,
453, and 542  remarkable considering that even a very good amateur
SCRABBLE player averages between 250 and 350 points per game.  Wapnick
also entertained the crowds by playing such unusual and obscure words
as REOVIRUS, ACYLATES, BEGLADS, CHUFA, and DRACAENA.

Although thousands of SCRABBLE(R) experts participate in very
senior-level sanctioned tournaments in Canada and the U.S., SCRABBLE(R)
still belongs to the millions of amateur enthusiasts who play it for
family fun.  This year marks SCRABBLE(R)'S 50th anniversary as the
world's most popular word game, a milestone few board games ever
celebrate.  An estimated 100 million SCRABBLE(R) games have been sold
to-date with between one and two million additional games sold in North
America each year.  Available in 30 different languages, it is
estimated that approximately 50 million people around the world play
the game regularly.