(Cross-posted to Muggle Meta Mondays - a wonderful forum for fans of meta crosswords!)
Apparently there was some kind of sportsball thing yesterday? I find these things confusing. Anyway, here's a metapuzzle. The meta answer, which has two words, can be found in both the U.S. and Canada.
Solution will be posted on Sunday, February 18.
Note: The easiest way to submit and verify your meta answer is using the Crosshare interface below, after completing the grid there. If you solved the puzzle on paper (which is highly recommended), you can just use "Reveal Puzzle" to get directly to the meta submission.
Solution time! This was a tough one.
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The four geographic locations in the themers point to four US professional sports teams that occur as alternate answers to clues elsewhere in the puzzle:
1-Down: Carnivorous mammals = JACKALS, but also PANTHERS (Carolina - NFL)
10-Down: College members = ELECTORS, but also CARDINALS (St. Louis - MLB)
57-Across: They may help you get around national parks = TRAILS, but also RANGERS (Texas - MLB)
36-Down: Some noblemen = SIGNORI, but also KINGS (Los Angeles - NHL)
The first letters of the grid entries spell JETS, which is another team name.
Now, what do these teams have in common? Answer: they each have the same name as team in another league:
Florida Panthers (NHL)
Arizona Cardinals (NFL)
New York Rangers (NHL)
Sacramento Kings (NBA)
The first letters of those locations spell FANS, making our answer [b]JETS FANS[/b], in reference to either the NY Jets (NFL) or the Winnipeg Jets (NHL), as indicated by the instructions. Being a Jets fan of the NY variety, I really didn't have much to do in the run-up to the Super Bowl, hence this puzzle.
There were a couple of unintentional red herrings that made this a less smooth solve than I hoped. First, there were two other teams that could have been alternative answers:
1-Across: Zippy watercraft = JETSKI, but also (Los Angeles) CLIPPERS
52-Down: Moody genre = EMO, but also (St. Louis) BLUES
More importantly, I somehow failed to notice that half of the meta answer was sitting right in the upper-left corner! After jumping through many hoops to avoid having any other team names occur in the grid, I seriously don't know how I missed this. But I think many solvers may have viewed this as a feature, not a bug, so I guess it turned out OK.
Thanks for your perseverance in solving!