Hokey-cokey

1.What does the term "critical year" refer to?

2.Why a "hokey-pokey" means a trick? Where did this word come from?

Thanks!

I can't help with 'critical year' but I think I can help a bit with the other phrase.

I can't find a certain origin, but the expression can be compared with Hocus Pocus. This is the start of a longer mock Latin phrase used by conjurers with the object of distracting the audience from any slight-of-hand. Our word Hoax is probably derived from this mock-Latin and Hanky Panky and Hockey Pockey are possibly variants.

Critical year - a very important and influential year. The events of this year will determine the path of a programme or a career in future years.

Hokey-pokey is also an old term for ice-cream.

The Hokey-Pokey is a song, and a dance, simple enough for children to learn quickly. It's much older than the late, unlamented Macarena. "Hocus Pocus" is a burlesque of the phrase "Hoc est corpus" ("this is my body") which is spoken in the L*tin mass when bread and wine are turned into Christ's body and blood - and transsubstantiation has to qualify as a darn good magic trick. Hocus-pocus evolved to mean any of the distraction schemes that magicians use to make their tricks work.

See this? This is the Hand of God and I put it in.
Nobody takes it out again. it counts forever.