live event
The Last Question at Lou Dawgs: Twenty-Sixteenagers, December 20th 2016 TRIVIA CLUB CHAMPS
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| Click here for pictures of the event's Champions! |
Thank you.
More will be said about Trivia Club at Lou Dawgs, but what about The Last Question this past Tuesday? Tune up The Band, put on "The Weight", and let's waltz through this recap... shall we?
Trivia Classic ended with the Cunning Stunts, after two weeks away from setting a new personal best high score on Tuesdays, in the lead! In 70 prior appearances, the Stunts had won 23 Golden VHS Championships at our Ryerson campus Club, scoring a total of 5,337.5 points in the process! Four points behind them in second, after round one were The Bastards, making their second appearance in 14 weeks, but including the new parents who were once part of the team that made 20 consecutive appearances at Lou Dawgs! The Bastards weren't going to miss this night, having won 28 Golden VHS Championships in 88 appearances, while scoring 5,965 points along the way! After them, five points behind, were veritable newcomers Neil Sucks who were were friends of newcomers from last week, nice haircut (thanks, again!), who this week were going as How u doin'? ;), who were tied for fourth place with the returning and CLASSIC M. Night Shaym-Aliens! In 23 appearances at Lou Dawgs, the original location for what would become Trivia Club's most well traveled team (our house band if you will!), the Shaym-Aliens were Five Timers Club members at Lou Dawgs! Two points behind the Shaym-Aliens were Lt. Dance, who on this night were known as the Twenty-Sixteenagers! Lt. Dance are the second most participating team at Lou Dawgs, narrowly edging the Cunning Stunts, making 72 appearances before tonight and marking their second anniversary at Trivia Club on the night as well! They had won 12 Golden VHS Championships in that time, while scoring 3,461 points! Rounding out the field were another couple of newcomers, Codename: Dutchess. We would also be remissed without mentioning PETE!, who with Christmas upon us, was out of the province when the night rolled around... but had by himself at Lou Dawgs won 12 Golden VHS Championships as well in 47 appearances, totaling 2,046.5 points himself, making him the only other team to top 2,000 total points at Lou Dawgs.
Game Show Games began, as it does, with Countdown Takedown, and thanks to cagey guessing, and the Cunning Stunts hitching their own guess to The Bastards which left BOTH TEAMS without points, it was the Twenty-Sixteenagers with the TOP TEN, followed by the M. Night Shaym-Aliens, Neil Sucks, How u doin'? ;), and Codename: Dutchess also getting points! The M. Night Shaym-Aliens then picked up the TOP TEN in Survey Says, with Codename: Dutchess, the Cunning Stunts, and The Bastards also grabbing additional points! Finally in the C-C-Combo Breakdown, the Twenty-Sixteenagers made a surprisingly quick exit (which also saw one of their four team members also have to make an early exit from the night), while How u doing? ;), and Codename: Dutchess also dropped away, before The Bastards, and the M. Night Shaym-Aliens were eliminated with one point to their team names! With the Breakdown down to Neil Sucks and the Cunning Stunts... it was those Cunning Stunts as the last team standing with an additional TEN POINTS to their name!
The Cunning Stunts were having a night, a fitting conclusion to the location that their second home away from Cardinal Rule, a location which they would eventually make more appearances at and win more Golden VHS Championships at as well! It would continue in Tri-Pardo as the Stunts would hit for the triple for FORTY-FIVE extra points, all the more impressive as they were the only team to do so, not to be out done, The Bastards would stick closest to their rivals at their home location, the place which The Bastards had competed at from the very first event to the last, and been a part of Grand Championships and Top Trophy winners along the way! Yes, The Bastards would gain thirty points of their own. Not to be out done, the Twenty-Sixteenagers would add an additional twenty points in Tri-Pardo, but then the other founding member of Lt. Dance would have to take an early leave, leaving half the team that began the night to Finale things off! With the rest of the field slipping behind, thanks to a variety of negative reactions to the trinity of round three questions... it all came down to the Finale!
In the Finale, the Cunning Stunts and The Bastards in their eternal Lou Dawgs struggle each went all in! Even with thirty point edge on this, The Last Question, the Stunts would never count out The Bastards, because The Bastards were ready to burn the house down to get past the Stunts! Potentially emboldened by the spirit of PETE!, Lt. Dance's remaining half of Twenty-Sixteenagers did NOT go all in, and maybe it was because Lt. Dance had finished with zero points in ten of their last eleven appearances, but maybe because the remaining Twenty-Sixteenagers knew their limits and worked within them... and bet a single point!
Not everything can be planned. This has led to some of the best moments in the history of Trivia Club at Lou Dawgs over these past 130 events.
Matthew McConaughey Arnold may not have returned after winning the first Golden VHS at Lou Dawgs at the first event, but they built a bridge from Cardinal Rule where they ALSO appeared at the first event for (and lost by just a single point), in which other teams could travel. And teams did travel. Thank you.
The Bastards would win the second Golden VHS at Lou Dawgs, and then four weeks later win another Golden VHS, and then then they would have to wait another ELEVEN weeks for their third win. It was a night that Matthew Smith guest hosted, and in celebrating with the Champions on the night, a welcoming team, would form a friendship that would not only see Matt team with The Bastards, but The Bastards team with the Electric Mayhem! The rest, as they say, is history. Thank you.
PETE! would win his first Golden VHS as a part of The Dime Beggars, at our ninth event at Lou Dawgs. He would go on to team up with, or help create, three other teams. Including of course The Bastards, who were first friendly rivals and then simply friends. All together, Peter would win by himself or with a team, thirty-six Golden VHS tapes at Lou Dawgs. Proving that even though it's better to join in with friends, when you're at Trivia Club you're with friends regardless. Thank you.
The M. Night Shaym-Aliens would win their first Golden VHS at our seventh at Lou Dawgs, and would prove the spirit of Trivia Club by journeying to each and every location we had to offer, adding to the experience along the way. In the end, returning to celebrate, even though they did not have to. Thank you.
Lt. Dance didn't even have that name for most of their first year playing Trivia Club, but between Popcorn Gallery, Gmail Roulette, and Chip Error Please Swipe, among many others, they experienced the highs and lows of the game while testing their competition. After winning in their first two appearances at the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015 they weathered leaner times, and have added to Trivia Club not just with participation but with an on-going podcast as well! Thank you.
The Cunning Stunts were Cardinal Rule's team, participants from the very first events at our Original Home, that was until they couldn't easily be so much a west-side team anymore. So they decided to put Lou Dawgs on notice, winning their first Golden VHS at the thirty-sixth event, before becoming the first team to ever threepeat, doing so at the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, and fortieth events at Lou Dawgs! Soon after they were our inaugural Top Dawg Trophy winners, and ever since they were a Lou Dawgs team. Thank you.
One of the most lasting memories from Lou Dawgs however, doesn't even feature a traditional Lou Dawgs team, but instead members of Five Neat Guys from Hitch. Their mother, Nancy Hawley, had recently passed away after a long and difficult, and then the team... needing a distraction, a respite, won at Lou Dawgs on October 6th, 2015. To be a source of comfort, entertainment even, in such impossibly difficult times, I am forever grateful. Thank you.
Not everything can go how you plan it, but sometime the poetry is hidden in plain sight. This Finale question, it was a stumper. Across the board all teams got the last question of The Last Question wrong, though some came impressively close! And so, The Bastards and Cunning Stunts finished tied for third. Maybe as it should be. To be continued. Runners-up on the night, for the second consecutive week after being awarded the First Runner-Up Award at our inaugural Trivial Awards, were the M. Night Shaym-Aliens! Winning with 47 points... ending 2016, just as they had ended 2015 at Lou Dawgs, and 2014 at Lou Dawgs... ending their Trivia Club experience at their first location, just as it had begun, with a Golden VHS...
The TWENTY-SIXTEENAGERS won their FIFTEENTH GOLDEN VHS, their thirteenth at Lou Dawgs, the first for one of the remaining two participants on the team, and the last Golden VHS to be given out at Lou Dawgs, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!
| TEAM | CLASSIC | CT | SS | CB | PARDO | WAGER | FINALE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Bastards | 30 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 30 | (65) | 0 |
| Cunning Stunts | 34 | 0 | 6 | 10 | 45 | (95) | 0 |
| M. Night Shaym-Aliens | 20 | 8 | 10 | 1 | -15 | (0.5) | 23.5 |
| Twenty-Sixteenagers | 18 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 20 | (1) | 47 |
| Neil Sucks | 25 | 6 | 0 | 2 | -30 | (20) | -17 |
| How u doin’? ;) | 20 | 4 | 0 | 0 | -15 | (20) | -9 |
Congrats to Lt. Dance's Twenty-Sixteenagers! Thank you as well to the The Bastards, Cunning Stunts, and M. Night Shaym-Aliens! To PETE! who I know really did want to be their on the night, to every team who has enjoyed a night of Trivia Club at Lou Dawgs, and to our new-comers to Trivia Club on this particular night, even if it was the last time you can find us at Lou Dawgs. 2017 will bring new things for Tuesday, new things for Thursday, new things for Trivia Club! Remember, it's not what you know... it's what you learn along the way.
Thank you. It's a celebration!
Russel Harder hosts Trivia Club at Hitch (1216 Queen St East) every other MONDAY of the month, at Lou Dawg's near Ryerson (76 Gerrard St E) every TUESDAY, and Cardinal Rule (5 Roncesvalles Ave) every WEDNESDAY!
