QUIZ RECAP

We had our most competitive night of trivia yet at Petoskey's this Tuesday with a lead change occurring every round of play except one! We had four teams of semi-pro mental athletes: Team Penguins, Team 3 Wise Men, Team Tree Well, and Team Ethan Loves Boobs (a cute little reference to their recently born, but incredibly thirsty, baby). And it all culminated with a nerve-wracking tiebreaker to settle the 1st and 2nd Place finishers.

Our teams soldiered through a schizophrenic Round 1 in which half the questions were Holiday themed ("What are the colors of Kwanzaa") and the other half were very much not ("Miller Park is home to what MLB team?"). Our Facebook Question of the Day was as much for fans of The Great British Bake-Off as it was for our social media followers, with our Netflix binging teams correctly identifying Croquembouche as the eponymous French pastry tower bringing the 'crunch in the mouth'. 3 Wise Men took the first lead of the night with 5 Points, but this would be traded back and forth as we got deeper into the night's contest.

Our Picture Round 2 had teams guessing the names of celebrities who were all born on Christmas. Unfortunately for 3 Wise Men though, Mr. Twilight Zone wasn't specific enough to earn them a point (we were looking for Rod Serling), which allowed Team Penguins to take 1st with 9 Points against the Wise Men's 8. Team Tree Well and Ethan Loves Boobs were tied for third at 7 Points.

Moving into our Round 3 ("Guys and Dolls" Theme), all our teams were able to hit the layups: "Who wrote the music and lyrics to 9 to 5: the Musical: Dolly Parton" and "What brand of dolls come with books telling a story about the doll's character: American Girl Dolls". Unfortunately most just missed closing out 'either/or' answer debates correctly: "Famous redhead children's book character of Jonny Gruelle: Raggedy Ann, not Pippi Longstocking" and "Love interest of Woody in Toy Story: Bo Peep, not Jessie". At the end of it, 3 Wise Men had taken the lead back from Penguins, but only by one point, 13 to 12.

Our Guess Who? Round 4 had teams initially struggle to realize they were dealing with a fictional character, but once I name dropped their MetLife Insurance sponsorship, it was a quick snap of pens as Snoopy was quickly scrawled down for submission. But it was Penguins who took the risk of guessing after the 8 Point clue, a daring maneuver that gave them the lead back at 20 points. This left 3 Wise Men and Ethan tied for second at 19 points, and Team Tree Well in third at 11 points.

It was in our Find the Connection Round 5 that we finally failed to have a lead change, but that was only because every single team scored 8 points out of 10 as they all recognized The Nutcracker as the connecting tissue of these factoids. Unfortunately our Handout Round 6 fell on the other side of the difficulty spectrum with an average accuracy of answers of only 35% ("Match the foreign language names for Santa with their country of origin"). The Standings moving into our Final Round were as follows: 3 Wise Men had taken back the lead with 33 points through the expertise of their foreign language superstar (who graciously helped provide your host with the correct pronunciations of all the Nordic vowels (or lack thereof). Tied for 2nd was Penguins and Ethan Loves Boobs at 31 points, and Team Tree Well was back at 19 points having failed to succeed at their Double or Nothing attempt to get back into the game.

Our Final Round was a set of two questions with 5 answers each:

What 5 Indiana State colleges have been to an NCAA basketball Final Four?

What 5 US States have hosted an Olympic Games?

And although no team correctly identified Missouri as the 5th US state (having hosted the world's 3rd Olympic Games back in 1904), Ethan Loves Boobs correctly identified all 5 Indiana State Colleges which earned them just enough points to get past Penguins (39 Points) to tie with 3 Wise Men (at 40 points). Meanwhile, Team Tree Well closed out the night with 25 points.

With Petoskey's first ever tie-score, I had to dip into the backup questions in order to further test out our top-two teams knowledge. With themselves evenly matched on Christmas trivia, it was the sports related question ("First Pure Punter drafted in first round of NFL Draft? Ray Guy") that finally proved one team was a cut above the rest.

So a big congratulations to Team Ethan Loves Boobs on their incredible comeback to win the tiebreaker and the game. Although they never were able to grab the lead during the rest of the game, they were always right behind Penguins and 3 Wise Men, and they turned up the heat when it really mattered. It was a tough break for 3 Wise Men, but I hope you'll come back and try your luck again.

A reminder that Petoskey's will not be hosting Trivia on Christmas or New Year's, so you'll have to wait until January 8th to enjoy my company again. Hope to see you there!