Dangle
A daily hockey guessing game where you try to name the mystery active NHL player in eight tries. Color-coded clues about team, position, conference, division, age, and jersey number narrow down the answer.
Dangle is a daily guessing game that asks you to name one hidden active NHL player. You get eight guesses, and after each one the game compares your pick to the mystery player across a set of hockey attributes. The name is a nod to the hockey term for a slick stickhandling move, and the format borrows from the NBA game Poeltl rather than from Wordle.
What is Dangle?
Each day Dangle picks one current NHL player and hides their identity. You start typing a player's name, choose from the suggestions, and submit your guess. The game then shows a row of boxes comparing that player to the mystery answer across team, position, conference, division, age, jersey number, and more. Green means an exact match on that category, so a green team box tells you the answer plays for that team right now, and a green position box tells you they play the same spot. You keep guessing and reading the feedback until you either name the right player or run out of your eight tries.
The color feedback goes beyond simple right or wrong. In the age column, yellow means you are within two years of the answer's age, and in the jersey number column, yellow means you are within five of their number. The team column has its own yellow meaning: the mystery player has played at least one game for the team you guessed, even if that is not their current club. Those proximity and history hints are what make Dangle solvable in a small number of guesses, since a single well-chosen player can tell you the conference, division, position, and rough age all at once. For anyone who gets stuck, there is a silhouette hint that reveals the player's outline.
Dangle was made by Ryan Schwarz, a New York University graduate and software developer, who built it after playing Poeltl, the NBA player-guessing game. It launched in early 2022 and was written up as a new arrival in an April 2022 Deseret News article. The game is free to play. There is also a Dangle Unlimited mode that lets you play extra games and view your guess history, including your current and best games, for players who want more than one puzzle a day.
When you finish, the results modal shows a Global Stats section with aggregate numbers for that day's puzzle, so you can see how the wider player base did on the same answer. The overall feel is closer to a sports trivia quiz than a word puzzle: you are drawing on what you know about NHL rosters, and each guess is a deliberate probe designed to eliminate divisions, positions, and age ranges rather than to spell out letters.
How to play Dangle
- Open Dangle at dangle.games in your browser.
- Type the name of an active NHL player and select it from the suggestions to submit your first guess.
- Read the color-coded boxes: green marks an exact match on that attribute, and yellow marks a near match such as within two years of age or within five of the jersey number.
- Use the team, conference, division, position, and age clues to eliminate players and narrow down who the answer could be.
- Keep guessing, refining each pick based on the feedback, until you name the mystery player or use all eight guesses.
- If you are stuck, use the silhouette hint to reveal the player's outline, and check the Global Stats after finishing to compare your result.
Tips and strategy
- Open with a well-known, veteran player from a big-market team so your first row of clues covers conference, division, and a solid age reference at once.
- Watch the age column closely: a yellow box means the answer is within two years of your guess, which lets you bracket their age quickly.
- Treat a yellow team box as a history clue, not a current-team clue, since it means the mystery player has played at least one game for that team.
- Once you lock in the conference and division from green boxes, choose your next guesses from teams inside that division to squeeze the field.
- Use the jersey number as a tiebreaker late in the puzzle, since yellow there means you are within five of the answer's number.
- Save the silhouette hint for when you have narrowed it to a position and division but cannot separate a few remaining candidates.
Good to know
- Category
- Sports (NHL hockey)
- Resets
- Daily, a new mystery NHL player each day
- Cost
- Free to play
- Guesses
- 8 per daily puzzle
- Modes
- Standard daily, plus a Dangle Unlimited mode
- Feedback
- Color-coded attribute boxes (green exact, yellow near match)
- Creator
- Ryan Schwarz
- Launched
- Early 2022
Dangle FAQ
Is Dangle free?
Yes, Dangle is free to play. There is also a Dangle Unlimited mode that lets you play extra games and view your guess history, but you do not need it to play the daily puzzle.
How do you play Dangle?
You have eight guesses to name the hidden active NHL player. After each guess, the game compares your pick to the answer across team, position, conference, division, age, jersey number, and more. Green means an exact match and yellow means a near match, such as within two years of age or within five of the jersey number.
When does Dangle reset?
Dangle resets daily, with a new mystery NHL player each day. No browsable archive of past daily puzzles is confirmed, though Dangle Unlimited lets you play additional games.
Is Dangle like Wordle?
It shares the daily, guess-and-get-feedback format, but it is not a word game. Dangle is an NHL player-identification game in the mold of Poeltl, where clues come from hockey attributes like team, conference, division, position, age, and jersey number instead of letters.
Who made Dangle?
Dangle was created by Ryan Schwarz, a New York University graduate and software developer, who was inspired by the NBA player-guessing game Poeltl. It launched in early 2022.