Quizbowl in Canada

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Variants of quizbowl in Canada have been around since the 1960s. Quizbowl, referring to a tossup/bonus format, is more widespread amongst universities, which began in the turn of the millennium, than high schools, which use Reach for the Top, except since 2005 in areas like Ottawa and Toronto where schools like Lisgar, UTS, and Woburn are increasingly attending quizbowl events at all levels.In the early 2010s, Alberta, led by Sinan Ulusoy began a circuit.

High School

High school quizbowl supposedly first appeared with the CBC radio show I.Q. in the early 1960s. The format was loosely based on the American radio version of College Bowl. The show was canceled in 1964 and Reach took root soon after.

Regional

A quizbowl tournament catered to high school students came in 2005 as an NAQT event hosted by Ottawa. It has continued each year since, but with low attendance, only peaking at 14 in 2010. Attempts to run a similar event in Vancouver, Toronto, New Brunswick, and Sudbury have all failed due to low interest. The Ottawa Quizbowl Tournament has become an annual event. Toronto and Kingston also have had universities run high school events, but with lower success.

Lisgar in Ottawa has hosted two to three a year from 2009 to the present. Other sites who have hosted have included Bell in Ottawa and Ridley College in St. Catherines.

From 2010 onwards excluding provincials, there are around 4-5 tournaments of varying difficulty each year in Ottawa, and a novice tournament in Southern Ontario.

Provincials

A provincial-level tournament is held in Ontario annually.

Nationals

Tournament Canadian Teams
2006 HSNCT Lisgar
2007 HSNCT Lisgar
2009 HSNCT Lisgar
2010 HSNCT Lisgar A, B
2011 HSNCT Lisgar
2011 PACE NSC Lisgar A, B
2012 HSNCT Woburn
2013 HSNCT Harry Ainlay
2013 PACE NSC Lisgar
2014 HSNCT Lisgar

Lisgar in 2008 and Assumption in 2010 withdrew their HSNCT registrations to attend Reach Nationals. In 2014, Webber from Calgary withdrew for unknown reasons.

Other

Some high school teams or individual high school players on open teams have played in events catered to universities, such as VETO,Ottawa Hybrid Tournament, as well as mirrors of ACF tournaments or independent housewrite events.

University

While some Canadian universities have "trivia clubs" that only play Trivial Pursuit or watch Jeopardy!, most clubs play quizbowl. Notably, there is no Reach for the Top available in post-secondary education (unless you are a college in Quebec exploiting rule #1 of SchoolReach).

ACF

Based on its history, Queen's was the sole Canadian team to participate in ACF events through most of the 1990s. In the 2000s, there has usually been at least one ACF event every year in British Columbia. In eastern Canada, ACF Fall was hosted by Brock in 2005 and by McMaster in 2008.

Currently, both Fall and Regionals are run in an Ontario site, attracting between 6 and 12 teams.

NAQT

Of the four major U.S.-based formats, NAQT has been the most successful in Canada. The earliest results on CAQL's website list tournament questions sources as "NAQT + Canadian content" [1]. SCTs have been held in Canada every year since 2000 (except 2002).

NAQT has been accused of making concessions to Canadians (such as adding high levels of Canadian content in questions or giving 2 ICT invites to the Vancouver SCT) to boost their Canadian market.

The 2008 SCTs saw no less than five former Reach champions playing in Division II, suggesting that maybe Canadians like NAQT because it's the closest collegiate thing to Reach. Two former champions (Peter Burton and Jacob Baskin) led in individual scoring at their respective SCTs.

Annually, the Canadian contingent to ICT consists of multiple players who had successful Reach for the Top careers.

The highest ICT finish a Canadian Team is 2010 Toronto at 5th in Division I, and 2008 Western at 2nd in Division II.

Tournament Canadian Teams
2010 ICT I Toronto
2010 ICT II Ottawa
2011 ICT I Toronto, Western (UG), Ottawa
2011 ICT II Guelph
2012 ICT I Toronto, Guelph (UG)
2012 ICT II Toronto, Ottawa
2013 ICT I Ottawa, McMaster
2013 ICT II Toronto
2014 ICT I Ottawa
2014 ICT II McGill, Carleton, McMaster

VETO (Open Summer Tournament)

Organized by Peter McCorquodale. The Vancouver Estival Trivia Open (or VETO Escapes to Toronto, Ontario) has been held annually in Vancouver (and often at a Toronto mirror) since 1999. In 2002, it converted to a "guerrilla" format in which there is no central editing. In recent years, VETO has been ridiculed by American teams for either a) teams who don't ask for advice and write bad questions, or b) teams who do ask for advice, then ignore it. VETO was head edited by ACF members in 2009 and turned into a fall+/regionals- level tournament. This led to widespread backlash to the question writers for the length of questions and subject distribution, but also pushed a lot of the younger generation to support good quizbowl. VETO continues into the 2010s as a low-key guerrilla tournament that is improving in Ontario as question writing skills improve due to ACF and other tournaments requiring writing.

Former Events

Provincial Bowl (October)

Organized by Brock Stephenson. It began in 2002 as BC Bowl, and since 2003 has included a more popular mirror, Ontario Bowl. In 2005, McGill hosted a third mirror, Quebec Bowl. The BC Bowl site has waned in significance in recent years, especially after Stephenson moved to Ontario for a work placement. Ontario Bowl, meanwhile, has grown in attendance each year. Ontario Bowl is often held at a first-time host site (McMaster, Ottawa, Brock/McGill, Carleton, Toronto).

Hybrid Tournament (March)

The Ottawa Hybrid Tournament is organized by Ben Smith and other members of Ottawa. It began in 2005 as a quick cash grab for funds to travel to an ICT, but has steadily gone down in price and up in quality. It is sometimes mirrored by UBC and Georgia. Its 16-team field at the Ottawa site in 2007 was the largest at a Canadian independent event until Ontario Bowl also had 16 the following season.

TRASH/trash

There has usually been a TRASH Regionals in either BC or southwestern Ontario (or both) with moderate attendance. There is not much in the way of independent trash, although the OHT is half pop culture and there is often a trash singles event after Provincial Bowl.

College Bowl

Queen's and Simon Fraser were regular participants in earlier years, though neither team currently plays College Bowl. According to the CBI website, there have been teams from the Universities of Saskatchewan and Toronto (before the modern team).

University teams

A list of Canadian universities that have sent teams to tournaments at some point. + refers to active teams.

Alumni

Canadians who have seen success in the mainstream American Circuit

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