Tuesday Night Trivia at “Best Damn Sports Bar in Albany”

Snow’s coming down all over the Capital District.  I’ve played for several Tuesday nights at Pizzeria UNO in Crossgates Mall, and later moved my game to Wolf’s 1-11 on Wolf Road.  But last night, all I wanted to do was get to a trivia game and play and win and go home.  In that order.

My choice eventually became The Best Damn Sports Bar in Albany, which is not a description of some other place, but is instead the name of a sports bar and grille on Broadway, just along the city line between Albany and Menands.

I figure, if they call themselves the Best Damn Sports Bar in Albany, if it really is so, I need to see something in this bar that I would not see in any other sports bar in the Capital District.  Something local.  Something that says “Albany” as much as “Sports Bar.”

Well, in addition to the television sets and framed jerseys and other memorabilia, were a copious amount of gear and memorabilia dedicated to one special football team.

The Albany Metro Mallers.

The first person who says “Who are the Metro Mallers?” can go jump in the lake.  The Albany Metro Mallers ARE semiprofessional football.  There was indeed a time when the Mallers would draw 6,000 people to Bleecker Stadium for a game against the Troy Uncle Sammies, and their battles against such teams as the Scranton Eagles, the Watertown Red & Black, the Marlboro Shamrocks and the Syracuse Salt City Aces are still retold among the devotees of semipro football.

That, and one of the quarterbacks from the Mallers is a co-owner of the bar.

Trivia started at 6pm, and was hosted by Charlie.  Not only does she host this trivia game, as well as the one at Professor M Barley’s on the corner of Quail Street and Western Avenue, she’s also an on-air personality for Jamz 96.3.  Fun stuff.

About the only other trivia team I recognized at the bar were members of Woo Hoo a Go Go, who played that night as “The Friends.”  There were other trivia teams at the bar – nobody I recognized from other games, but I don’t play everywhere, so I don’t often recognize every talent.

The questions began, and I was hitting them left and right.  I nailed questions about which President, before he took office, worked on what would become the Louisiana Purchase (James Monroe); I knew the company that was the subject of the film “Roger and Me” (General Motors), and I nailed the cartoon character who first appeared in the short film “Knock, Knock” (Woody Woodpecker).  I picked up a sizeable lead, and already one team in the bar – a team called “Three’s Company” that was about 24 points below zero after five questions – started trash talking me.

I had missed one question midway through the game, as I did not know which literary character had a brother named Mycroft (I don’t know why I said it was Holden Caulfield, somewhere in that dark night J.D. Salinger is banging his head against a wall in frustration), but when the answer was announced, one of the team members from “Three’s Company” said out loud, for all in the tavern to hear, “Did that over there at the end of the bar get that right?”

Uh-oh… forgot I still had that TU cursing blocker on my blog.  But you get the hint.

I should also note, just for the sake of honesty, that although there were plenty of televisions IN the bar, the televisions weren’t ON at the bar.  See, I get my television shows through Time Warner, so when a snowstorm blankets the Capital District, I don’t have to worry about my satellite receivers getting coated with white fluffy transmitter-inhibiting snow.  Oh well.  It happens.

Final question came up, and I held an 8-point lead over “The Friends,” and we were the only two teams with positive points.  Final question category was the Olympics.

I decided to see what would happen if I bet only enough that if “The Friends” bet it all, and we both got it right, that we would tie for the night.  Would we get duplicate gift certificates?  Would we have to split the gift certificate?  Would there be a tiebreaker question?

The final question was – “How many times has North America hosted a Winter Olympics?”

I counted them out.  Lake Placid, Lake Placid, Salt Lake City, Squaw Valley, that takes care of the USA, then Calgary and Vancouver, that makes six.  I wrote down six and handed in my slip.

The answer was correct – six times the Winter Olympic flame has burned in North America.  But the Friends only bet a few points, gambling that I might bet the farm and get the answer wrong.  You know what – sometimes a weenie bet doesn’t work as well as one would hope.

It was a decent game all around, Charlie runs a fast trivia game (I think she ran through 20 questions in 90 minutes), and maybe next time if the snow doesn’t cover the satellite dishes, I might see some more sports action on the bar’s televisions.

Or at least maybe some DVD’s of classic Metro Mallers championship games.