That’s right. I can hear it like the thunder on the horizon. The seventh annual competition for trivia supremacy in the Capital District. Trivia Bowl 7, the invitation-only grand final, will be held on February 5, 2011 – at Wolf’s 1-11 in Albany, with the first question at 1:00 p.m.
Trivia Bowl 7. The showcase of the immortals. The battle where legends are made.
Jeez, is this a trivia competition or a get-together for Call of Duty: Black Ops?
Trivia Bowl originally began as a pre-Super Bowl competition in 2005, back when the top trivia game was Tuesday nights at Hooters in Crossgates Mall. Hooters is long gone – there’s some fondue restaurant there in its place – but at the time, upwards of 30 teams would compete each week for massive amounts of free wings and beers. Lynch’s Mob won the first two Trivia Bowls there, and my Street Academy team – which at the time consisted of myself, Dennis Truax, Tracey Stein and Ken Secor – claimed the third championship.
Hooters shut down a few months later – something to do with the holding company that operated several Hooters restaurants in the Northeast going bankrupt, and the two profitable Hooters restaurants – the ones in Albany and Syracuse – got swallowed up by the seven or eight Hooters restaurants that failed.
Trivia Bowls 4 and 5 were held at Broadway Joe’s on South Pearl Street, adjacent to the sports arena. Stern Fans won the fourth championship, while a team whose name is a Load of something grabbed the chalice at Trivia Bowl 5.
By Trivia Bowl 6, the championship battle moved to Wolf’s 1-11 on Wolf Road, where my Street Academy team – this time fortified with an entirely new lineup, including current teammate Alexis Curry (Jeremy McNamara was unfortunately out of town that weekend), and “Smart @ss Trivia” hosts Marc Palozzi and Anthony Chiera – claimed the trophy, making Street Academy and Lynch’s Mob the only two-time Trivia Bowl champions.
But Street Academy’s year with the chalice is winding down. And on February 5, 2011, the night before the Super Bowl, a champion will be crowned as kings of all trivia.
Who will it be?
Will it be a legacy team like Tres Hombres or Joe Rude or the Skidmarks, teams who can trace their history back to the original Hooters competitions?
Will it be a team like Surf Tulsa or A Few Cards Short of a Deck or Woo Hoo a Go Go, teams that have built their strengths at regional bars and taverns and proven their skills as the kings of their territories?
Will it be a team like Blue Mooned or Da Bears or Just the Tips or 106, squads who have come on strong of late and are teams that can never be taken lightly in competition?
Or will it be a team that comes out of nowhere, and on this one night, finds every question within their proverbial wheelhouse, every question right along topics that they know, and they walk out with the big championship chalice?
Only time will tell.
But I will say this.
I know very well that every team is going to come to this competition with their “A” game intact. They’re going to study. They’re going to strategize. And no matter who wins, I will be the first one to go over and shake each team member’s hand and congratulate their success.
Of course, that’ll be around the time of Trivia Bowl 8… maybe…
But all kidding aside, I want to offer each trivia team that plans on competing in Trivia Bowl 7 a chance to promote themselves. With that in mind, I’m going to offer “mini-profiles” of each trivia team. And here’s your chance to fill out yours.
If you have been invited to Trivia Bowl 7, and you want to have your team featured as part of a “mini-profile” on this blog, respond to this blog post with information about your team and your teammates. Once I receive the information, I will format the data into a blog post, and will contact you for a suitable photograph. Just answer the following questions:
- What is the name of your trivia team?
- How did you come up with that team name?
- Who is your team captain, and who are the other regular members of your team?
- How long have you been playing bar and tavern trivia in the Capital District?
- What’s your local home bar / tavern and why do you like playing trivia at that place?
- What is the toughest trivia question you’ve ever gotten right?
- Why do you play competitive team trivia? Is it the camaraderie of being with your friends, is it the competition, is it the winning of free food and prizes, etc.?
- What are the toughest teams you’ve ever played against?
Send in your mini-profile, and once I get a few of them in the dock, I’ll post them here. Please note that, due to Times Union policy, if your team name contains any vulgarities or profanities, it will need to be cleaned up to at least a PG-level before it gets posted in this blog. But other than that, let me hear from you regarding your team and teammates!
Chuck The Writer 
FIRST!
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