The Quizbowl Resource Center

The Ontario Quizbowl Association, in collaboration with McMaster University's quizbowl team, is pleased to host the 2014 ONQBA Provincial Championship. It will be held at McMaster University in Hamilton on March 22, 2014. This tournament will be the premier high school quizbowl event in Ontario, serving as an opportunity to bring competition from all active regions in the province. This tournament is also an opportunity for teams to qualify for the NAQT High School National Championship Tournament and the PACE National Scholastic Championship (pending approval from both organizations).

I, Ben Smith, will act as tournament director, and can be reached by email at president -AT- onqba.ca . The team at McMaster will still have a role in running the event, and if you have any issues about the campus or city (directions, hotels, food, etc), you can direct inquiries to Jay Misuk ( jay.misuk -AT- gmail.com ) or to me: I'll either answer what I know or pass it along.

We have applied to NAQT to be the "state" championship for Ontario and use the accompanying question set. In the unlikely event that the ONQBA bid fails, we will obtain an alternate source of questions. Assuming the use of NAQT questions, the games will be timed and calculation questions will be removed. We also expect to be able to include approximately one tossup and bonus per game of Canadian content. Games will follow NAQT rules.

We tentatively have a field cap of 18 teams, and will, for now, limit schools to 3 teams each until we are more confident we can accommodate extra teams. For a field of 10 teams or fewer, there will be a full round-robin plus additional playoff rounds to get all teams to at least 8 or 9 games. For fields greater than 10 teams, there will be preliminary pools followed by playoff tiers.

The tournament fees are as follows:
$65 for the first team from a school
$55 for the second team from a school
$45 for each additional team from a school beyond the second
$10 discount for working buzzer systems
$10 discount for staff
Other discounts for activity on the Ontario circuit (see below)
Minimum total fee: $0

To encourage more activity in the high school circuit during the year, the ONQBA is also offering "participation" discounts. A school that participated in an ONQBA-certified event can claim up to one of the following (schools are listed after their highest eligible discount):

$50 for hosting an ONQBA-certified event (Lisgar, Colonel By)
$15 for attending at least two non-provincials certified events (Bell)
$10 for winning a certified event (Waterloo CI)
$5 for finishing in the top 15% of a certified event

All teams from Ontario are welcome and encouraged to attend. No prior qualification or experience is necessary, although it is recommended that you become familiar with NAQT rules. Also note that, as a non-profit organization, the ONQBA will donate any surplus proceeds to schools that attend national quizbowl championships in the US.

I hope that teams will return to normalcy after a difficult season last year due to extracurricular withdrawals. Nevertheless, if your team will face financial or logistical obstacles for not having extracurricular status, please let us know as soon as possible and we will accommodate as best as we can.

Good luck to all the teams!

Assuming some other pressing commitment doesn't crop up, you can expect my staffing assistance for this, along with n<=4 buzzer systems, if need be. I may also be able to round up some other Buffalo readers.

Sweet. Sorry for the late response, I had kinda forgotten about this. But don't worry, it'll be a good day!

After some late pleas, we have enough teams interested to at least get the tournament running.

Current field:
Assumption (Burlington): 1 teams
Bell (Ottawa): 1 team
Centennial (Guelph): 1 team
Colonel By (Ottawa): 1-2 teams
John F Ross (Guelph): 2 teams
Lisgar (Ottawa): 1 team
Sir Winston Churchill (St. Catharines): 2 teams
Waterloo CI (Waterloo): 1 team

Great to see more Southern Ontario teams; I look forward to meeting you all!

Colonel By will officially sign up 1 team for now. We may have a second (and maybe even a third), although this is not confirmed at the moment.

As of right now, I'm going to vouch for Westmount entering at least one team. I'll find out more and make a confirming post by Wed. evening.

I failed to mention it earlier, but we will indeed be using NAQT IS-136 for this tournament. With 14 packets available, we can have a single round-robin for up to 12 teams. 13 teams will not happen. 14 and above will use pools.

I sent emails to some players in the region regarding staff. If you would like to help staff and didn't get a message this afternoon, please feel free to email me via "president" at "onqba.ca". Staff who are not part of a team discount or McMaster's club will receive some form of a token of appreciation (I can't stay for the dinner, though).

I sent an email to teams, but we will meet by 8:45 AM in Chester New Hall, room 102.

The field is:

Assumption CSS (Burlington): 1 team, 1 buzzer
Bell HS (Ottawa): 1 team
Centennial CVI (Guelph): 1 team
Colonel By SS (Ottawa): 1 team, 1 buzzer
John F Ross CVI (Guelph): 2 teams
Lisgar CI (Ottawa): 1 team, 2 buzzers
Sir Winston Churchill (St. Catharines): 2 teams, 1 buzzer
Waterloo CI (Waterloo): 2 teams, 2 staff, 1 buzzer
Westmount SS (Hamilton): 1-2 teams*
and buzzers and staff from McMaster

* Westmount will be flexible to make scheduling easier in case of any drops

Good luck to the competitors!

I have driven back to Ottawa, and I want to sleep, so here is the brief summary.

Colonel By beat Bell in the first game of an advantaged final 615-95. That score was an indication of CB's run through the 12-team field. Lisgar was third, marking the first time they haven't won Ontario provincials. Centennial was the best team not from Ottawa.

Cameron (CB), Gavin (Waterloo CI A), and Andreas (Lisgar) were the top three scorers.

The stats, on the HSQB database for now: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... standings/

Thanks to all the teams, McMaster club members, and volunteer staff that came today.

I would like to thank Ben Smith for running a great tournament that was in line with the excellence we have come to expect from the ONQBA. I like to also thank all the great moderators and staffers that I got to work with, and to all the teams both near and far, for coming to the tournament. This is much better than the "Lisgar vs. Colonel By Bowl" of years past.

Peter13 wrote:I would like to thank Ben Smith for running a great tournament that was in line with the excellence we have come to expect from the ONQBA. I like to also thank all the great moderators and staffers that I got to work with, and to all the teams both near and far, for coming to the tournament. This is much better than the "Lisgar vs. Colonel By Bowl" of years past.

Actually, out of five Ontario NAQT provincial championships only the 2013 one had a 1-2 finish of Lisgar-CB. 2010 was Lisgar-UTS, 2011 was Lisgar-Bell, 2012 was Lisgar-Woburn, 2013 was Lisgar-CB, and 2014 was CB-Bell.

As an outsider, I'll speak up and say that Colonel By didn't really come to any level of prominence with me until the 2012-2013 season.

The email to NAQT with all the stats is bouncing, but fear not, I will try again tomorrow.

As for the tournament, the Ottawa sweep wasn't too much of a surprise, but I am glad to see some southwest Ontario schools either come back or try for the first time. We will try to get another tournament in the Toronto/London/Niagara triangle next year.

bsmith wrote:The email to NAQT with all the stats is bouncing, but fear not, I will try again tomorrow.

We did in fact receive this.

Sorry, thank you, I think I should clarify. What I meant to say is that it is good to see a team defeat Lisgar after its prominence of years past, and it's much better than last year's "LIsgar vs Colonel By Bowl".

bt_green_warbler wrote:We did in fact receive this.

OK, thanks.