2016 ONQBA Provincials (University of Toronto, 26 Mar 2016)

[Masked Canadian History Bandit]

The Ontario Quizbowl Association, in collaboration with the University of Toronto's quizbowl team, is pleased to host the 2016 ONQBA Provincial Championship. It will be held at the University of Toronto on Saturday March 26, 2016. 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.

The tournament will take place in Sidney Smith Hall and will run from 9:00 AM in the morning to mid-late afternoon (around 3:30-4 PM). Teams should aim to arrive at Sidney Smith 2129 at 8:30 AM so games can start promptly at 9.

I, Patrick Liao, will act as tournament director, and can be reached by email at patrick.s.liao – AT – gmail.com. Registration emails should be sent to me at the above address and contain the number of teams registered, and what discounts you will be claiming. Invoices will be sent to teams via email. Posts in this thread or messaging me on Facebook do not count as official registrations, though I am available for questions on both of those mediums. I will be assisted in tournament direction by Meghan Torchia, the President of the University of Toronto quizbowl team, especially on issues concerning logistics, transportation, and food.

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 regular difficulty 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 12 teams, though we can likely find resources to handle more teams given enough notice. For a field of 12 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 12 teams, there will be preliminary pools followed by playoff tiers.

The tournament fees are as follows:
* $90 for the first team from a school
* $70 for the second team from a school
* $50 for each additional team from a school beyond the second
* $5 discount for fully working buzzer systems (to be tested day of)
* $5 discount for trained staff
* $10 discount for every 200 km travelled
* Other discounts for activity on the Ontario circuit (see below)
* Other discounts at the discretion of the ONQBA board for exceptional circumstances (e.g. travel over 400 km, single person teams, etc.)
* Minimum total fee: $20 (per team)

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:

* $40 for hosting an ONQBA-certified event
* $10 for attending at least two non-provincials certified events
* $10 for winning a certified event
* $5 for attending one non-provincial certified event

To promote healthy communications practices, any team that from this post onwards changes the number of teams registered attending any high school quizbowl tournament in Ontario with less than 24 hours notice to the tournament director(s) will not be eligible for any discounts (including for additional teams) and will be given the lowest priority if they end up on a waitlist.

At this stage, all academic quizbowl events intended for high school teams with at least one Ontario team in attendance will count as certified. History Bowl events in Canada count; "Reach-style" events or SchoolReach regionals do not.

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 and try practicing on a few quizbowl packets, of which many similar non-NAQT formats are available online.

See you in March, and good luck to all the teams!

[Masked Canadian History Bandit]

Field

White Oaks (1 team/1 buzzer)
Bayview (2 teams/1 buzzer)
Merivale (1 team)
Westmount (2 teams/2 buzzers)
Lisgar (1 team/1 buzzer)
"East Scarborough" (1 team/1 buzzer)
Waterloo Collegiate Institute (1 team/1 buzzer)

Interested
Toronto Montessori School
Bloor Collegiate Institute
Dr. Norman Bethune Collegiate Institute

[Masked Canadian History Bandit]

We currently have 9 teams signed up out of our field cap of 12 teams. A logistics email will be sent on Wednesday, March 23. Registrations will be closed at 11:59 PM Thursday, March 24, and a schedule will be sent to all teams Friday, March 25.

[Masked Canadian History Bandit]

Somewhat live stats, currently before the rebrackted playoffs, are available here: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... s/prelims/

Lisgar (8-0), Bayview A (7-1), "East Scarborough" (5-3), and Merivale (5-3) are in the top bracket.

The top scorers were Jacky Li from "East Scarborough", Kelly Yu from Bayview A, Sheena Li from Lisgar, Colin Veevers from Lisgar, and Sherry Li from Bayview B.

[Masked Canadian History Bandit]

Lisgar A cleared the field to win the 2016 NAQT Ontario Provincials. Merivale went 3-0 in the top bracket to take second place. Bayview A finished 3rd, and "East Scarborough" finished 4th.

Prelims: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... s/prelims/
Playoffs: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... /playoffs/

Please email or pm me if there are any mistakes in the standings before I send them off to NAQT.

Thanks to everyone for showing up, and hope to see you next year!