New Hampshire Quiz Bowl League

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The New Hampshire Quiz Bowl League is the Granite State's official championship tournament. It is run by Hanover High School coach Bill Murphy and was founded in the 1996-97 school year. Questions are supplied by Academic Hallmarks.

Tournament structure

The NHQBL finals are held in early April and feature eight teams that qualify through regional competitions. The teams play a round robin and the team that finishes with the best record is declared the champion. In case of a tie for first place, a tie-breaker match is played for the title.

The qualifying tournaments are held in the late winter or early spring in five geographic regions, Lakes, Merrimack Valley, North Country, Seacoast and West. The events are open to all teams, from New Hampshire or not, and all teams play 10 matches at each. The highest-finishing intra-regional team at each tournament qualifies for the state finals, as do the three non-regional winners that amass the most combined victories from all the regional events.

History

Murphy founded the NHQBL to give all New Hampshire schools a reason to compete every season. New Hampshire Public Television's Granite State Challenge predates the league by more than a decade, but the television tournament allows only 32 teams to participate so rarely will any particular school compete more than every other year. The NHQBL has helped shrink the number of the teams that disappear during their non-TV seasons. The existence of the league is part of the reason that a NAQT New Hampshire State Championship has only held one year, in 2008.

Hanover has been the dominant team in the NHQBL's 14-year history, winning 11 championships -- including six in a row from 2001 to 2006. Oyster River, Manchester West, and Portsmouth Christian are the other teams that have won the title.

YEAR CHAMPION RUNNER(S)-UP
1997 Hanover NA
1998 Hanover NA
1999 Oyster River NA
2000 Oyster River NA
2001 Hanover Colebrook and Salem
2002 Hanover Oyster River
2003 Hanover Phillips Exeter
2004 Hanover NA
2005 Hanover NA
2006 Hanover NA
2007 Manchester West Hanover
2008 Hanover Phillips Exeter
2009 Hanover Phillips Exeter
2010 Hanover Bishop Brady
2011 results needed
2012
2013 Portsmouth Christian
2014 Portsmouth Christian

Panasonic Academic Challenge

The NHQBL is used to select the all-star team that represents New Hampshire at various national all star tournaments, like the National All-Star Academic Tournament or the now defunct Panasonic Academic Challenge. Each regional champion is entitled to one player on the team, with sixth member and the squad's coach typically coming from the state championship team.

The New Hampshire team reached the PAC playoffs for the first time in 2009 but has yet to the same success at NASAT.