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Replace the question mark with a fitting image.


enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ This is only the latest of several "knowledge" puzzles on Puzzling.SE. If the knowledge required were what could reasonably be termed "general knowledge", this fault would be relatively minor. However, as the answer reveals, the task of finding it entails recognising eight people who are known only in some obscure field --- the vast majority of us not familiar with that field stand no chance. $\endgroup$
    – Rosie F
    Commented Jun 1, 2023 at 18:11
  • $\begingroup$ @RosieF Also doesn't help that all but one of them are wearing business suits, rather than the outfit they'd have on when doing what they're known for. My first guess was that they were politicians... $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 1, 2023 at 19:23
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    $\begingroup$ @RosieF the puzzles those are not tagged as 'knowledge' are the puzzles about general knowledge. knowledge tag-description says "A puzzle whose solution relies on external sources such as tables, dictionaries, Wikipedia, or specifics that may not be common knowledge." $\endgroup$
    – ACB
    Commented Jun 1, 2023 at 19:28

1 Answer 1

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A fitting image would be:

Wayne Gretzky

i.e. a picture of ice hockey legend, Wayne Gretzky.

Why? First identify the people in the images. These are all...

...ice hockey players who have played in the NHL:

Left side: Eric Lindros, Paul Kariya, Mario Lemieux, and Jaromír Jágr.
Right side: Brett Hull, Pat LaFontaine, Pavel Bure, and Glenn Anderson.

Now note the image depicting a jersey with a red square...

We need to find the jersey numbers worn by these players. The numbers most famously associated with them all (and indeed retired by their clubs in most cases) are:

88 | 9 | 66 | 68
16 | 16 | 10 | 9

(This information can be found from Wikipedia, although Jágr's 68 doesn't feature in this list as I don't believe it's officially been retired yet...)

Now note the topmost part of the puzzle.

This list of digits represents concatenated odd numbers (greater than 1).

We need to focus on the numbers from the two pools of player faces that are odd numbers. In each case there is only one in each: Kariya's 9 and Anderson's 9.

(EDIT: The OP points out in comments that this was actually intended as a rebus for 'odd-one-out' - hence the only odd number outside the box being the '1'. Either way, I still managed to arrive at the intended answer, as the reason one player was the odd-one-out in each case was because they had an odd-numbered jersey!)

Put these together as per the two side-by-side red boxes and you get:

99, the number famously worn by Wayne Gretzky, whose shirt number 99 has been retired across the whole of the NHL in recognition of his achievements on the ice (hence a slippery puzzle in the title!).

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    $\begingroup$ Great job! The digit part of the puzzle was meant to be interpretaded as rot13(bqq bar bhg. Na vzntr bs bqq ahzoref jvgu gur 1 bhgfvqr; bar bhg. ) $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 1, 2023 at 11:31
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    $\begingroup$ @Prim3numbah Ah, that's a nice little rebus - I went more literally! $\endgroup$
    – Stiv
    Commented Jun 1, 2023 at 11:34

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