PHYData DBA (5/1/2014)

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See lots of discussion about why the right answer is...

Here is a reference to the right answer from TechNet BOL.

Looks like this answer to this question has not changed for at least 15 years...

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa237090(v=SQL.80).aspx

For any joins, use the first (top) input to build the hash table and the second (bottom) input to probe the hash table. Output matches (or nonmatches) as dictated by the join type. If multiple joins use the same join column, these operations are grouped into a hash team.

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