2023 Canadian Player Poll

[IncompetentIdiot]

This is the 2022-23 edition of the Canadian Player Poll. Feel free to submit ballots for any or all of the ballots listed below.

The main poll will include 25 players. In order to be eligible for the main poll, a player must attend a university in Canada. Players are automatically eligible for the main poll if they played the Canadian site of either 2023 ACF Regionals or 2023 NAQT SCT. If they did not play either of those tournaments, they can gain eligibility by playing the Canadian circuit sites of two closed unrestricted-eligibility tournaments (or semi-open while holding closed eligibility). (For this edition of the poll, this includes the three recognized nats tournaments.) Those tournaments are listed below:

2022 Winter Closed
2022 Penn Bowl
2022 ACF Winter @ UBC
2022 ACF Winter @ Toronto
2022 ARCADIA
2022 C++
2023 ACF Regionals
2023 NAQT SCT
2023 IQBT Undergraduate Championship
2023 MRNA II @ Carleton
2023 MRNA II @ Waterloo
2023 NAQT ICT
2023 ACF Nationals

The rookie poll will include 10 players in their first year of university QB (defined as not previously fulfilling these eligibility criteria), who played 2022 ACF Regionals or 2022 NAQT SCT or any two circuit tournaments. In addition to the tournaments listed above, these include the following restricted-eligibility tournaments:

2022 NAQT Collegiate Novice @ Carleton
2022 NAQT Collegiate Novice @ Toronto
2022 ACF Fall
2023 Canadian Novice @ Ottawa
2023 Canadian Novice @ Toronto

To my knowledge, the following individuals are rookie-eligible. Please correct me if I've omitted anyone.

Carleton: Kevin Anderson, Alim Dhanani, Ethan Kraemer, Stefan Mihai, Billy Mott, Spyra Papoulias, Benjamin Yu
McGill: Anya Brown, Max Chemtov, Jacob Garofalo, Max Gross, Romeo Hor, Robin Moore, Henry Olsen, Liz van Oorschot, Kate Richards, Devito Stevanus
McMaster: Adil Haider, Cranmer McGinn, Robert McKinnon, Esther Su
Ottawa: Max Christie, Annie Dai, Danté Fosterdelmundo, David Gayowsky, Kristofer Grabovskis, Margaret Inglis, Ilyas Jaffer, Maude-Sophie Lockman, Claire Mendonca, Sam Montgomery, Narththanaan Rajeswaran, Ian Reid, Samy Saada, Nikita Serikov, Emerald Smith, Ian Theysmeyer, Reid Tull, Daniel Vorotyntsev, James Wang, Seamus Yeo, Mona Zorigoo
Queen's: Charlie Botterell, Lauren MacDonnell, Elliot Norman, Samir Toubache
Toronto: Yihong Chen, Mandelina Fagundes, Kate Howden, Sarah Khan, Jason Leung, Simon Ormerod, Joshua Sangary, Dayala Singh, Isaac Thangaraj, Ben Wismath, Franklin Wu, Owen Zhang, Ryan Zhu
Waterloo: Jacob Bicol, Terrance Chen, Micah Colman, Michael Du, Mattias Ehatamm, Caleb Ott, Ambarish Suresh, Cendikiawan Suryaatmadja, Artur von dem Hagen, Matthew Woodward
Western: Maren Burgoyne, Olivia Druxerman, Eesa Huq, Beth Kearney, Dylan Staecker, Thomas Vukovic

Aside from those listed above, you may also want to consider these other tournaments where eligible players competed:

2022 ACF Fall @ Washington
2022 Penn Bowl Online
2022 Winter Closed Online
2023 ACF Regionals @ Wayne State
2023 NAQT SCT Online
2022 CMST @ Toronto

You are also welcome to consider side events or any other criteria, so long as they occurred during the 2022-2023 competition year (Henry Atkins' EMINENT VICTORIANS).

As always, you are encouraged to submit an additional community ballot recognizing anyone who made a non-playing contribution to the circuit this year.

Ballots may be posted below (let me know if you edit your ballot after posting) or sent to me at kfan1863 (at) gmail (dot) com or on Discord and Messenger. Please do so by 7 May.

Past Canadian Player Polls can be found below:
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016

[Gene Harrogate]

Though no longer a closed player, I had the fortune to attend the same tournaments as many of the people below. This was probably the strongest and deepest year for the Canadian circuit ever - a fact evident from Waterloo’s exciting ICT win - and the tough choices made at the bottom (and top) of the ballot reflect that. Congratulations to everyone for being good at quizbowl.

1. Sky Li. There’s a large cluster of players that could plausibly go here, of whom Sky was generally the most consistent. Big respect to Sky for improving so much from last year and putting down excellent performances like Penn Bowl. I also had the pleasure of playing with Sky for the first time at CMST and can say that they’re a great teammate.

2. Tony Chen. The CO trash champion is another plausible choice for #1, and has the best jungling coverage of anyone on the list. Loses a spot or two for his unfortunate tendency to fight the questions.

3. Cormac Beirne. #1 Augustus Egg fan Corms was a bit streakier than the above players this year but as usual was the best at one of them (last year it was WORKSHOP; this year it was Winter Closed). I thought it was very admirable how he (in his words) “hit the cards really hard” this year.

4. Kevin Fan. Kevin’s like a miler who hangs back before putting a strong move down in the last lap, and then writes something ethically dubious at the finish line. For the second year in a row my former teammate has made ACF Nats look like MRNA Vaccine and gets the #4 spot because of it.

5. Gareth Thorlakson. The great tragedy of the year is that we never got to see this NAQT goblin on ICT questions. Grizzle’s history is about as good as any slice of questions on the circuit, which means that he predictably scales up quite well. GUMLOCK gets docked a little for not fighting the questions enough.

6. Ian Chow. Another NAQT monster cruelly denied his chance by the vicissitudes of Boreas. A strong player with fearsome control (i.e., diplomatically reasons with the questions) and a somewhat unpredictable knowledge base.

7. Ben Chapman. Despite his placement at #7, I did consider putting Ben “the Brooklyn Beaver” Chapman #1. A strong jungler who will surely continue to club the circuit over the head with powers on supreme court cases for years to come.

8. Adrian Wong. Another very improved player and a strong anchor for an impressive Mac D2 team. Hampered a little bit by not playing a lot of (harder) tournaments. Did very well at Eminent Victorians.

9. Milan Fernandez. My once and future teammate isn’t just an elite chemistry specialist, but has crossed over this year into the unfamiliar territory of literature and other fine arts. I think everyone knows that the soloing situation is a bit unideal for Milan, who really is more of a good specialist and power-hound than an FTP stock goblin; it sure is easy to forget though with this jolly demeanor and habit of stealing games.

10. Wenying Wu. Between Penn Bowl and Nats, I think Wenying might now be the strongest literature player/graphic design enthusiast on the circuit.

11. Jay Misuk. Probably the best indicator of how strong the circuit has gotten is that Jay is outside the top 10 for the first time in the history of the poll. A strong history specialist playing next to the Chicoutimi Chump, but a little short on data for ranking higher.

12. Max Gedajlovic. Doesn’t feel quite right having Max outside the top 10 either. A very complete jungler at easier tournaments. Has good game sense, good buzzing skills, and is also one of my favorite people in the circuit.

13. Sam Hauer. Haven’t seen too much of Sam this year, but as always have enjoyed what I did see. Played very well on CMST’s expanded philosophy and arts distribution when he showed up with his non-quizbowl-playing life partner (who powered 2 tossups!).

14. Raymond Chen. Rounding out a tough-to-rank Toronto A+, Raymond is very good in his relatively narrow specialties. Another person I very much enjoyed playing with the first time (a somewhat surprising fact when you consider that we first played against each other in Spring 2016).

15. Mattias Ehatamm.It feels a little rough starting the ICT champs off at 15, but it was that kind of year. Waterloo’s run was really something special, and probably the most fun I’ve had following a tournament. Just a team of four hardworking guys who nailed down their specialities and had ice water in their veins when it counted. Mati deserves a special note for that Finals 2 game.

16. Liam Kusalik. He’s not just good at science; did you know he’s also tall?

17. Michael Du. Sleeps during tournaments and amasses portentous fortune cookies.

18. Parth Jagtap. I feel like Parth has just sort of quietly made consistent strides every year, until the point where he’s been a very capable jungler on Toronto’s depth squads. Another great shame was the fact that his team had to play ICT shorthanded, only just barely missing top bracket in the process.

19. Andrew McCowan. A good jungler who has done a good job leading Queens teams in difficult situations, and especially strong at beliefs. Look forward to seeing Andrew again next year, wherever he lands.

20. Nick Edwards. The genies en herbe champ has taken another step forward this year and is now set to quarterback/center/jungle future McGill squads. A laudable proselytizer of the “10s win games” school of thought. Look for him taking down ICT next year with more inexplicable knowledge of French royalty.

21. Albert Li. Another what-if story from this year’s ICT travel disaster. A strong uppercut to Parth’s left hook, I have a feeling we’ll be hearing from that crazy Albert Li again. And I don’t mean a postcard.

22. Gaian Valdegamo. Gaian had an excellent ICT, where he performed on par with his three teammates and earned every bit of that trophy. The only reason he ends up a little lower here is because of somewhat less strong fall tournaments. He’s been a great fine arts player basically since his first online novice practice and is sure to be part of a very strong Waterloo squad next year.

23. Yadu Kukenthiran. Played C++ from Singapore on no sleep, which seemed only to increase his power?

24. Connor Haines. Ottawa’s resurgence is another great story this year; I very much enjoyed watching them take Cormac and Kevin to a second finals game in the Carleton MRNA mirror. Will be fun to watch Connor, Gabrielle, and the gang continue to play tournaments and put together a D2 run next year.

25. James Ah Yong. Chief among a strong cast of Waterloo players who didn’t attend ICT but who all year put together almost equally powerful rosters—Caleb, Micah, Jared, etc. Excited to see how many instantly good players Waterloo can spontaneously generate for summer opens this year.

Honorable mentions who may or may not be technically eligible (in alphabetical order): Elena Bai, Max Chemtov, John Chen, Gabrielle Clark, Micah Colman, Nadia Dadouki, Alex Galvin, Jacob Garofolo (play more!), Jared He, Ishan Joshi, Marcell Maitinsky, Thomas Mennill, Kane Nguyen (a legend who finally got his ICT), Caleb Ott, David Snoddon, Devito Stevanus (legend), Joey Sun, Isaac Thangaraj, Jacob van Oorschot, Amy Wang, Benjamin Yu. Sorry if I missed anyone.

[MMSANCHEZ]

1. Sky Li (Toronto)
Congrats on an amazing year Sky! I initially thought I was going to put Tony here, but after looking through Sky’s stats, especially from the first half of the year, I think it has to go to them. Sky has been arguably the strongest player at basically every tournament they’ve played, while leading teams to victories in literally every closed tournament on the Canadian circuit. Certainly more reasonable than the players ranked directly below them.
2. Tony Chen (Western)
Truth be told, I’m not really sure I bought the arguments against Tony based on his specialism not being as deep as others last year, but I certainly don’t now. Not only has Tony solidified himself as the most complete 3 dot generalist on the circuit this year, but his power numbers seem to have pretty much caught up to the other people around him here. He should really consider not going to Toronto next year, I hear UBC law has a spot available!
3. Benjamin Chapman (Toronto)
I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say Ben’s results in the second half of the season merit consideration for first. He comfortably top scored a tournament winning CMST team with Gareth and Tony on it, before doing basically as well as Tony soloing D1 ICT. I think he’s clearly the best science player on the circuit at this point (even while negging too much of it), while having developed into a fantastic generalist as well. Will certainly thumbs down react this ranking,
4. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto)
I’m not unconvinced that if Gareth had gotten to go to ICT he’d have convinced us all he should be first, but I think this is about right as is. Probably not quite the generalist that Ian and Sky are, but his History 4/4 seems better than just about anything anyone else has going on, and his reach skills definitely make him one of the scariest players late in the tossup. I think a team of Gareth, Tony, Ben and Sky could make big waves at ICT and ACF Nats next year, if that lineup ends up materializing. Best vibes on the circuit.
5. Ian Chow (Toronto)
Ian is probably my pick for most complete generalist at 2 dots, with the ability to scale up several categories much higher. I think Ian is fairly unusual in that his best pockets of knowledge seem very scattered throughout all of the distribution, which might give the false impression that he doesn’t go as deep in his core categories as others. I’m not sure where Ian will be next year, but I hope he keeps playing quizbowl.
6. Kevin Fan (McGill)
Once again, Kevin had a fairly inactive year, only to silence the haters at Nats. I think there’s certainly a case to be made for him to be much higher based on that tournament, but I guess I’m not totally convinced it was that much better than most of the Toronto cluster, after factoring the lower bracket and lesser shadow. Regardless, Kevin clearly remains one of the top 2 history players on the circuit, and alongside Milan is probably the most liable to pull off an absurd firstline out of nowhere.
7. Cormac Beirne (McGill)
Honestly I think all of the top 9 players on my ballot would be at least borderline top 5 in a normal year, and Cormac at only 7th feels extremely wrong. Despite fantastic showings at Winter Closed and C++, I think Cormac gets pushed down a little bit for a relative weakness on NAQT questions and a bit less consistency than those above him. That being said, Cormac has done a remarkable job anchoring strong McGill teams as a top flight fine arts player and humanities generalist. I’ll be very sad to see him go after graduating this year, and hope he sticks around on the circuit.
8. Adrian Wong (McMaster)
I feel like I’ve underranked Adrian every year, and I might be doing it again, but I can’t see who goes lower. Adrian’s been near the top of the scoring at every tournament he’s played this year, and led McMaster to an impressive 6th place finish at D1 ICT. I hear he’s graduating this year and he better not be heading to Toronto.
9. Milan Fernandez (Niagara)
Milan has done a great job making the best of fairly unideal circumstances in needing to solo every open tournament, taking some big wins off strong teams. Should be one of the most coveted teammates for any hard open tournament, I think Milan will really shine when playing with teammates who complement his Lit/VFA/Chemistry specialty.
10. Jay Misuk (Western)
I’ve felt that people have exaggerated a bit the extent to which Jay has declined, and yet the competitiveness of this year’s ballot leaves me placing him in a lower spot than I’d have expected. It’s too bad he couldn’t make either Nats as it would have been exciting to see what Tony could have done with backup.
11. Max Gedajlovic (UBC)
I’m relatively pleased with how I’ve done stepping into more of a scoring role following Lia’s retirement. I think I performed in the ballpark of some of the generalists above me at ACF Winter and SCT, but haven’t been able to maintain that level as consistently. Even still, I’ve scored a lot on teams with fairly competitive PPBs, so I think I should be around here.
12. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo)
Mattias’ rise this year has been nothing short of amazing to watch, culminating in a legendary 5/0/0 finals performance leading Waterloo to an ICT title. That coupled with his excellent UG Champs, makes me feel confident ranking him here, and actually kind of wondering if he should be even higher.
13. Sam Hauer (UBC)
I’m really glad that despite both our reduced activity, I got to play a few final tournaments with Sam this year. Sam has been an awesome player and a better teammate over these last 3 years. UBC quizbowl will really miss him, and I hope he sticks around on the circuit as an open player.
14. Wenying Wu (Toronto)
Another very strong season from Wenying, capped off by an excellent performance on a strong Toronto team at ACF Nationals. Wenying gets the most impressive literature buzzes of anyone on the circuit, but I also think she gets more from her secondaries categories and pockets across the distribution than people realize, which results in her usually scoring a bit more than Raymond.
15. Raymond Chen (Toronto)
With the departure of Henry, Raymond is arguably the strongest Literature player on the circuit, but unfortunately he gets pushed down a bit for being narrower than most of the players around him. Still, the many dominating tournament victories achieved by Skraying teams this year makes me think he should be higher.
16. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo)
The emergence of Michael and Mattias has meant that Liam has gotten to step back as a team leading generalist into a more specialist role that probably suits him better. How Liam couples sneaky generalism with being one of the top 2 science players in the circuit guarantees he’ll be a big contributor on any team he plays with.
17. Parth Jagtap (Toronto)
This is the part of the list where the crazy competitiveness of this year’s ballot most stands out to me. If you had told me before the start of the year that someone would power 37 tossups at SCT and then lead a team within 5 points of ICT top bracket, I’d assume they’d end up in the top 10, but here we are. Ultimately I think everyone higher has had a bit more of a consistent track record at 3 dots, but Parth’s improvement this year into a complete monster at 2 dots has been extremely impressive.
18. Andrew McCowan (Queens)
Another fantastic generalist who really should be higher. Would have had him above Parth if not for Parth’s crazy NAQT run. If Andrew ends up at Ottawa he's gonna serve as a fantastic anchor for an up and coming team with lots of potential.
19. Michael Du (Waterloo)
Like Mattias, Michael’s development from someone who had never played competitive trivia, to an integral part of an ICT winning squad has been nothing short of remarkable. With the right players around him, Michael has put in great performances buzzing across science and history. Ranked a bit below Liam because the Waterloo A teams have seemed more optimized for Michael than Liam, and I feel Liam’s science depth makes him a bit more adaptable. That being said, if Michael and Mattias keep improving at this rate, watch them both crash through the top 10 next year.
20. Gaian Valdegamo (Waterloo)
The final member of Waterloo’s ICT winning squad, Gaian has served as an indispensable fourth on Waterloo A teams throughout the year. Gaian has developed into one of the circuit’s premium Fine Arts players, and has shown off solid generalism as well when not shadowed by full Waterloo A lineups.
21. Nicolas Edwards (McGill)
Nick has shown a lot of growth over his second season, culminating with impressive performances at SCT and MRNA to end off the year. Already most of the way there to being a top flight humanities generalist, Nick’s a candidate to take another big step forward next year. If he does, look for McGill to compete for a top bracket spot at ICT next year.
22. Kane Nguyen (McMaster)
Kane put up big power numbers at SCT and ICT, supporting Adrian on route to McMaster’s eventual 6th place finish. Kane’s excellent specialty in Biochem and VFA would make him a big asset on most teams. Probably would have been a spot or two higher if he negged a bit less.
23. Caleb Ott (Waterloo)
I knew Caleb would be good since Reach Provs and Nats last year, where I watched him get almost every quizbowl adjacent question while co-leading (alongside Micah) Glebe on an undefeated title run. With the crazy things Waterloo A has been doing this year, it would be easy enough for Caleb’s performances to be lost in the shuffle, but his excellent support performance at UG Nats, and 5th scoring Waterloo MRNA definitely secures a top 25 spot in my books.
24. Yadu Kukenthiran (Western)
Despite playing in the middle of the night from Singapore, Yadu still put up very solid numbers across the second half the season while playing alongside Tony. Western only got to run a Tony/Jay/Yadu lineup at ACF Winter this season, but if they got to play it at more, I think they could have given Toronto a run for their money.
25. Albert Li (Toronto)
It’s a real shame Albert’s flight to ICT got canceled.Given how well Toronto did even without him, with Albert they might have been in the hunt for the podium. Albert’s another player I thought would end up higher, but these bottom 10 or so spots are so crowded. Albert and Parth formed a really strong combination at several tournaments this year, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do next year.

Honorable Mentions:
Honorable mentions go to Connor Haines, (who I would have ranked 26th) and Gabrielle Clark, who led Ottawa to some fantastic wins at ACF Regionals and MRNA. David Snoddon, who is already a good Literature specialist at 3 dots. James Ah Yong, Jared He, and Micah Colman are 3 more fantastic Waterloo players, who just missed the cut for my ballot, and who I assume will form the core of another ICT run for Waterloo next year. Jacob Van Oorschot and Max Chemtov, who both performed exceptionally at ACF Nationals. John Chen, who played several hard tournaments alongside Me, Lia and Sam, and put up many remarkable buzzes across history, social science and classical music. Russell Nip, who has turned into one of the strongest players at UBC by learning much of the Literature and Science canon, and who I hope will lead UBC on an ICT run next year.

Rookie Ballot
1. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo)
2. Michael Du (Waterloo)
3. Caleb Ott (Waterloo)
4. Micah Colman (Waterloo)
5. Adil Haider (McMaster)
20 PPG next to Adrian at ACF Regionals is seriously impressive, hopefully we see more next year.
6. Isaac Thangaraj (Toronto)
Another strong reach player whose taken to quizbowl very well. Did admirably when thrown into the deep end on a competitive D2 ICT team.
7. Max Chemtov (McGill)
8. Jacob Garofolo (McGill)
Was basically as good as Nick at Winter, but didn't play anything after. I've never seem him play but from the sounds of things he could have disrupted Waterloo's monopoly on the top spots if he kept at it.
9. James Wang (Ottawa)
Big credit is due to James for his work building up the Ottawa team, and liaising with the rest with the circuit. He's also done very well as a player at ACF Winter and MRNA, and figures to be a good science player for a strong team going forward.
10. Kevin Anderson (Carleton)
Seems like the strongest player from Carleton this year, with good showings at every event he played. I'm excited to see Carleton at more tournaments next year!

[NedWards]

After a thrilling season in the Great Northern Conference (and an ICT win!!), it’s time to rank Canada’s greatest athletes. Watching them this year proved the best sport on earth is quizbowl. Uh, quizball? Basketbowl? Basketball.

(Objectively, the best sports are hockey and soccer, but that can wait till next year.)

Some quick takes:

1. Kevin Fan (SF, McGill)
Canada’s #1 spot goes to the definition of a big-game player. After sitting out early-season tournaments due to load management, Fan reminded all the Kevin Fans out there how clutch he is, putting up the highest PPG of any Canadian university player at Nats. A scoring threat from pretty much anywhere on the court, whose effectiveness skyrockets in ISO situations. Regularly hits History logo shots. Most likely player on this list to ask a teammate what their favorite color in the Russian Civil War was.
Player comp: Kawhi Leonard

2. Tony Chen (SF/PF, Western)
Despite his controversial online presence, there’s no denying’s T. Chen’s talent. Like Fan, he’s a pure scorer, but he effectively uses his size advantage to dominate the paint and create space for midrange shots. Great wing defender who’s unstoppable on both ends of the court when his Lit 3-ball is falling. Occasionally airballs free throws for some reason. Oh, and he’s joining Toronto next year??? The hardest road…
Player comp: Kevin Durant

3. Sky Li (PG, Toronto)
S. Li’s impressive scores at ARCADIA, C++, MRNA, and Nats prove they’re a bonafide winner. Can splash 3s from pretty much any outside spot, can be trusted to take big shots in clutch time, and demonstrates all-around impressive knowledge across a wide range of categories, including History, Beliefs, and Fine Arts.
Player comp: Stephen Curry

4. Gareth Thorlakson (PG/SG, Toronto)
Thorlakson’s terrifying speed and killer History 3-ball are a great complement to S. Li’s passing skills in the Toronto backcourt. Has left many an opponent in tears after AmHist daggers and is a capable ball facilitator in his own right. An offensive dynamo who contributes on the defensive end through active hands and high steal numbers. Fantastic locker room presence: only someone so well-liked could recover from the stigma of studying in America.
Player comp: Luka Doncic

5. Cormac Beirne (PG, McGill)
McGill’s captain makes the top 5 because of his upside. When Beirne’s locked in, he can score in all the humanities, usually by using his speed to glide past defenders and finish at the rim. It goes without saying that he can pull up from anywhere past halfcourt to score VFA 3s at will, but in his last year, he’s added highlight-reel acrobatic Science layups to his game, achieving the final stage of generalism. An effective floor general who’s good at finding open teammates when he gets double-teamed. His leadership will be missed, but his legacy of noticing how Nick Edwards can’t hit a f*cking Econ free throw to save his life will live on.
Player comp: Damian Lillard

6. Ian Chow (SF/PF, Toronto)
It seems criminal to put Chow at 6th, but it speaks to just how strong the Canadian circuit is. The versatile forward is one of the most consistent players in the country: he combines strong rebounding, good defensive awareness, and efficient scoring (primarily on midrange jumpers and corner 3s in the dynamic Toronto system). A great two-way player who thrives on and off the ball. Should use spellcheck on his tweets.
Player comp: Jayson Tatum

7. Ben Chapman (PF/C, Toronto)
“Deez Nuts” Chapman was scary enough last year as a rookie, but in addition to perfecting his Science post-ups, the Toronto big man added Philosophy midrange fadeaways and even an efficient AmHist corner 3 to his game. Not only does he continue to shine in a high-spacing Toronto system with the league’s best point guard feeding him passes down low, his solo performance at ICT demonstrated impressive dribbling and playmaking skills. A fearsome shot-blocker who will terrorize the circuit for years to come.
Player comp: Anthony Davis

8. Adrian Wong (C, McMaster)
Wong capped off his undergrad stint at McMaster with yet another strong season, culminating in a top-bracket finish at ICT. The best playmaking big man in the circuit, Wong has an arsenal of skill moves in the paint, boasts high FT%, RPG and APG, and is a 3-point threat if left open. Some truly impressive performances running McMaster’s offense this year, and his interior defense isn’t to be underestimated either.
Player comp: Domantas Sabonis (with flashes of Nikola Jokic)

9. Milan Fernandez (PG/SG, Niagara)
Fernandez rightly deserves praise for single-handedly carrying Niagara to respectable finishes this season. A real sniper who can make it rain from 3 in Lit and Fine Arts, or cut to the rim to finish some tough layups. It felt like he was sharing the court with 4 traffic cones this year. Hopefully Niagara makes some moves in free agency, allowing Fernandez to show off his sick passing game.
Player comp: Donovan Mitchell

10. Wenying Wu (SG, Toronto)
Toronto’s third Splash Sibling often had to play the SF position this year to accommodate the Thorlakson-S. Li backcourt in their team’s preferred 3-guard lineup, but she used the opportunity to prove why she’s one of the best two-way players in the country. A lockdown perimeter defender with a ridiculous range on her ever-efficient Lit 3-pointers. Demonstrated playmaking abilities at MRNA, too.
Player comp: Klay Thompson

11. Max Gedajlovic (SF, UBC)
Canada already knew Gedajlovic had top-notch intangibles, but he stepped into Lia Rathburn’s shoes as UBC’s scoring leader with ease this year. An all-around player with strong athletic abilities, he has a knack for making both pass-first and shoot-first strategies work from an offensive perspective, but is also a constant steal threat on the defensive end. Steps up his game in the clutch using his signature Lit midrange jumper. Gives out witty quotes during press conferences and interviews.
Player comp: Jimmy Butler

12. Sam Hauer (PF, UBC)
Hauer was a solid presence for UBC all year. One of the best rebounders and shot-blockers in Canada, with a strong midrange game to boot. A player all guards would want setting a screen on their pick-and-roll actions. Great locker room presence.
Player comp: Pascal Siakam

13. Raymond Chen (PF/C, Toronto)
Toronto’s veteran presence showed a lot of positional versatility this year. R. Chen was solid as a 5 in small-ball lineups with S. Li and Wu, but was equally effective shifting to the 4 when Toronto wanted more defensive solidity. Can score on Lit from midrange and at the rim, while continuing to shoot his Bio corner 3s at a high success rate.
Player comp: Al Horford

14. Jay Misuk (C, Western)
An experienced player who provided important parts of a winning recipe when he played this year: lockdown paint defense and high BLK, along with a lob threat (effectively utilized by T. Chen and Kukenthiran) and rebounding abilities.
Player comp: Rudy Gobert

15. Parth Jagtap (SG, Toronto)
An electric scorer with the downhill speed of Bottas & Hamilton’s Mercedes-AMG W11. Can splash 3s in Lit and Beliefs, and get you at the rim almost everywhere else. Developed a great backcourt partnership with A. Li, and it’s a shame they couldn’t show this off at ICT. Having Jagtap on the bench when S. Li, Thorlakson, or Wu need a rest is proof that Toronto should be hit with the full force of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Player comp: Devin Booker

16. Mattias Ehatamm (SG/SF, Waterloo)
Do all Estonians have ice in their veins? 5/0/0 in the ICT Finals?! Simply incredible. A Lit sharpshooter, great wing defender, and effective facilitator in Waterloo’s pass-heavy motion system. Like the other Waterloo starters, defenders can’t just guard Ehatamm outside: he’ll sneak past them on cuts and get to the rim at will. So f*cking clutch. ICT champ.
Player comp: Jaylen Brown

17. Michael Du (PG, Waterloo)
Waterloo’s positionless style means Du isn’t a classic point guard, but make no mistake, he’s a damn good player. Particularly good at off-ball movement and making the initial pass after bringing the ball past halfcourt. Great midrange and 3-point game on History and parts of Science, deadly slasher, ICT champ. Below Ehatamm due to a slightly higher turnover rate.
Player comp: Trae Young

18. Liam Kusalik (C, Waterloo)
Sure, Kusalik is Waterloo’s center on paper, but it’s Waterloo, where any player can score on you from anywhere, so who knows. A great rebounder, shot-blocker, and lob threat. One of the best Science scorers in Canada. Can bury opponents with 3s from the top of the key. Steady and dependable player. ICT champ.
Player comp: Bam Adebayo

19. Andrew McCowan (PG, Queen’s)
The Queen’s captain showed remarkable grit this season, powering his way to strong finishes at tournaments with tough opponents. A classic floor general capable of incisive, defense-breaking passes on the fly, McCowan is also a strong 3-point shooter, particularly in Beliefs. He covers up his slight defensive weaknesses with a consistently high PPG, an ability to draw fouls, and great in-game awareness.
Player comp: Chris Paul

20. Gaian Valdegamo (SG/SF, Waterloo)
ICT champ. Valdegamo is a Fine Arts corner 3 specialist who can also use his speed to score in the paint with acrobatic layups, and hits the occasional what-the-f*ck fadeaway late in the shot clock. High steal threat on defense. Like the other Waterloo starters, clutch as hell.
Player comp: Khris Middleton

21. Kane Nguyen (PG, McMaster)
When he’s not hitting logo 3s on NAQT’s college football content, Nguyen is an excellent secondary scorer thanks to his effective midrange game. A solid on-ball defender and talented passer whose pick-and-roll combination with Wong was very, very hard to stop this year. Can go on cold streaks at times, but it’s worth the wait when he catches fire and splashes a stepback 3 on plant Bio.
Player comp: Jamal Murray

22. Yadu Kukenthiran (SG, Western)
Showed that he most definitely has that dawg in him by playing C++ all day while in Singapore. Kukenthiran adds a fun extra dimension to Western’s offense by complementing T. Chen’s steady scoring game with explosive 3s in History and the occasional highlight dunk.
Player comp: Zach LaVine

23. David Snoddon (PF/C, Toronto)
Snoddon may be known in Canadian circles as the GOAT source of live play-by-play commentary in the country, and there’s no doubt Twitch streaming lies in his future, but he’s also a reliable secondary scorer with an efficient Lit game in the midrange and paint areas. He beefed up his skillset this year with NAQT pop-culture corner 3s and high RPG and BLK numbers.
Player comp: Jaren Jackson Jr.

24. Albert Li (PG, Toronto)
I think ICT would have bumped A. Li up this list a bit, but the fact remains that he’s a History sniper with APG and STL stats at nearly top-tier levels. Dagger 3 specialist who definitely has the clutch gene. Will no doubt perfect his game at higher levels next year.
Player comp: De’Aaron Fox

25. Nick Edwards (PG, McGill)
There are many bright spots to Edwards’ sophomore year. He diversified his game and developed a decently reliable midrange arsenal across the humanities, particularly in History. He also completed his transition from Reach/Génies streetball to the big leagues, retaining his wild dribbling style and using his explosive speed to blow past defenders and score at the rim. He even started shooting 3s semi-efficiently and improved his passing abilities, moving away from his volume shooter tendencies. The problem? He’s still a total defensive liability, and he’s still prone to hilariously bad turnovers. If Edwards irons these kinks out, he’ll bring a much-improved and better-rounded player to a McGill squad looking to make a D2 ICT run next season.
Player comp: Darius Garland

HM:
Gabrielle Clark (PG/SG, Ottawa), Connor Haines (PF/C, Ottawa), James Wang (SF, Ottawa)
Ottawa’s return to the circuit was a great part of this season’s narrative (with McGill especially appreciative of the reduction in travel time their presence brought). The team’s upbeat personalities won them many fans, and it’s hard to only pick a few players to spotlight. Clark’s 3-ball and passing were a lethal combination with Haines’ inside scoring, scoring an upset against a Fan-Beirne McGill team at MRNA. Wang showed solid all-around abilities, good perimeter defense, and an impressive midrange jumper. Now that Ottawa’s back in the game, chances are they’ll make a bigger splash next year.
Player comps: Jalen Brunson, Julius Randle, Brandon Ingram

Benjamin Yu (PG, Carleton) and Kevin Anderson (C, Carleton)
Carleton was another team that returned to the circuit after a few years’ absence. Yu led his squad’s renaissance, displaying good passing and a decent 3-ball. Anderson displayed impressive athleticism for a center, landing some fiery dunks and maintaining a high RPG.
Player comps: Spencer Dinwiddie and Clint Capela

Jared He (C, Waterloo) and James Ah Yong (SG/SF, Waterloo)
Waterloo’s depth is crazy, considering these two will form the core of their D2 ICT squad next year (along with some rookies – more on them later). He is a stretch 5 who combines shot-blocking and interior defense with a lob threat and corner 3s. Ah Yong is a solid wing defender with a deadly midrange jumper.
Player comps: Brook Lopez and DeMar DeRozan

Elena Bai (SF, McGill) and Jacob Van Oorschot (C, McGill)
These two will probably team up with Edwards in McGill’s bid for ICT qualification next year. Bai showed off strong perimeter D and high STL, along with a midrange skillset in Philosophy, Social Science, and Lit. JVO is a reliable center who rebounds well and consistently scores on Science post-ups. He also provided important points support to Fan and Beirne at Nats.
Player comps: Jaden McDaniels and Jarrett Allen

This was also a strong draft class for the Canadian circuit.
Rookies:
1. Mattias Ehatamm (SG/SF, Waterloo)
2. Michael Du (PG, Waterloo)

3. Max Chemtov (PF/C, McGill)
Chemtov may be a grad student, but he’s still a rookie. He quickly adapted the game’s rules to his knowledge base this season, playing a stretch 4 role and efficiently shooting 3s in AFA and Math. His skills landed him on the McGill team at Nats, where he provided solid scoring support at a tournament that no other Canadian rookie played. Calm locker room presence and willing team driver (much appreciated by McGill). Had possibly the sickest assist of the season during an MRNA Chem (ha!) bonus, a behind-the-back no-look “what’s that word for fizzy stuff that has a double f in it” pass from the top of the key which reached a cutting Nick Edwards at the rim for an “effervescence” layup.
Player comp: Kristaps Porzingis

4. Caleb Ott (SF, Waterloo)
Ott’s stats at ARCADIA, C++, and MRNA prove that his Reach streetball game has already translated well to the big leagues. He’s got great perimeter D and a clean midrange selection. If he develops a 3-point shot next season, look out.
Player comp: Mikal Bridges

5. Micah Colman (SG, Waterloo)
Ott’s partner in crime from Glebe High streetball is an explosive, athletic scorer. Colman’s 3-point shots and midrange jumpers in History, Beliefs, and Geo are already efficient and will only get better. Could Waterloo be the first team to win D2 ICT in back-to-back years? Doesn’t seem that implausible.
Player comp: Anthony Edwards

6. Isaac Thangaraj (PG/SG, Toronto)
Toronto’s standout rookie this year is a versatile guard who showed flashes of elite shooting and passing. His streetball dribbling style makes him unpredictable and difficult to defend against, as evidenced by his strong scores at Fall and Winter, along with a respectable performance at ICT.
Player comp: Tyrese Haliburton

7. Jacob Garofalo (PF/C, McGill)
Clutch. So goddamn f*cking clutch. The McGill rookie shows up in big games à la Kevin Fan: after rampaging through Collegiate Novice, Garofalo was a vital part of the team that won Fall and then scored over 40 PPG at Winter. So much potential. McGill is begging him to come to practice.
Player comp: Paolo Banchero

8. Henry Olsen (SF/PF, McGill)
The stats will tell you that Olsen scored well at Fall and Winter, and they’d be right. The eye test from McGill practice will reveal that he likes Baseball and AmHist, making him the ideal NAQT player. Olsen is already shooting efficiently in AmHist, EuroHist, Philosophy, and Econ. He could take a step forward next year once he learns some canon moves.
Player comp: Scottie Barnes

9. Max Gross (SG, McGill)
A promising recruit with some streetball experience who showed grit and performed decently at Fall, Winter, and C++. Has a sweet midrange Religion jumpshot. Brings a positive locker room presence and most likely player on the rookie list to make refs burst out laughing mid-game. What’s the opposite of technical fouls?
Player comp: Jaden Ivey

10. Maude-Sophie Lockman (SF, Ottawa)
Lockman proved Génies streetball can translate just as well to the big leagues as its anglophone counterpart, impressing at Canadian Novice and posting a respectable PPG at harder tournaments like MRNA and Regionals. Capable of scoring from 3-pointers or slashing, she’s a good support piece for an Ottawa squad on the rise.
Player comp: Keegan Murray

HM: Liz Van Oorschot (C, McGill) and Devito Stevanus (G/F, McGill)
With her Reach streetball championship experience, it was just a matter of time before the younger sibling to McGill’s starting center adjusted to the big leagues. LVO’s decent showing at SCT, but especially her standout performance at Canadian Novice, earn her a mention. The rebounding and shot-blocking are already there: the next step is to diversify her offensive arsenal. And it would be a crime not to mention the Incredible Indonesian himself, Devito Stevanus. An extremely versatile player who showed willingness to play against forwards despite his guard size, his grit and intangibles are out of this world. He has the most Dawg/36 out of anyone in the circuit. He is HIM. And he’s got a decent jumpshot, too!
Player comps: Walker Kessler and Austin Reaves

(Credit and thanks to Henry Atkins for pioneering quizbowl/sports ranking crossovers)

[mdu]

Finally got my first year of quizbowl behind me. I don’t know the circuit as well as some of the older members, so this is somewhat a mix of twenty tabs of database results and personal impressions, especially if you are a lit player since I don't pay attention during those.

#1 Sky Li: I don’t think anybody has as good of an argument for first as Sky. They reliably put up carry performances on whatever Toronto team they play in, buzz and scale well on essentially all of the distro, and show up at the top of the PPG scoreboard almost every time. An incredible season capped off by a good showing at Nats.

#2 Tony Chen: The driving force behind the Western team and an absolute menace on the circuit. Plays all of the distro extremely well at a three-dot level. Also pretty good at reading in a car without getting carsick and willing to spare me from the middle seat.

#3 Kevin Fan: I unfortunately did not manage to play, or even see the face of this man this year, but his Nats performance is enough for me to put him here.

#4 Ben Chapman: One of Toronto’s great specialists who can definitely fight in other categories as well. Must be applauded for his weather-induced solo performance at ICT, where he managed to deliver Tony a shellacking in their bottom bracket match.

#5 Ian Chow: He’s up there as one of the best generalists in the circuit, with an especially fearsome history, but doesn’t quite have the consistency of Sky. On a good day though, he can pull his punches with any of them.

#6 Grizzle Thorlakson: Another Toronto specialist who does exceedingly well in his category and can play at a very reasonable level outside of it.

#7: Cormac Beirne: An essential part of the second strongest team in the circuit. Scary across the whole distro, but similarly to Ian not quite up there in consistency.

#8 Adrian Wong: The star player of the McMaster squad that managed to place well in everything they showed up to and helped Waterloo’s run with a few wins in the top bracket at ICT. Demonstrated his generalism with an impressive solo performance at MRNA and pairs well with Kane and the rest of Mac. It really doesn’t feel like he should be this low in the ranking, but there’s not too many harder tournaments in his data set.

#9 Milan Fernandez: A top ten circuit player who was unfortunately stuck soloing for Niagara College. Can buzz almost anywhere in the distro, scales up in his specialties very well.

#10 Jay Misuk: Well, I saw Jay exactly once this year, but he has enough experience in quizbowl to show up to three-dot and drop a solid 30-40PPG, which puts him solidly ahead of the more specialized players that form most of the teens section of this ranking. Would place higher if he played either of the nationals.

#11/12 Max “The Axe” Gedajlovic, Sam Hauer: Some of the players I haven’t seen too much of due to the rather large wasteland known as the Prairies between us, but these two are the core of a very solid UBC team now that Lia is retired, and I don’t really have too much evidence to say that one is better than the other.

#13 Mattias Ehattamm: My staple quizbowl teammate/driver, CS365 classmate, closeted Eesti 200 supporter, and good friend. I think I’ve played almost every single tournament this year with Mati, and unfortunately he buzzes (and negs!) more often than me most of the time. Seems to have picked up an incredible amount of lit knowledge in the past year, and has some very reliable niches outside his main specialty such as Buddhism or Roman history. Solidly the top PPG scorer on Waterloo A and scales extremely well on lit.

A special shoutout has to go to the 5/0/0 game. My only complaint is that he steals my history PPB frequently and I have to vulch the scraps of lit that I’m offered.

#14 Wenying Wu: Good scaling specialist whose performance at any specific tournament seems to depend on how many other lit players Toronto brings (unfortunate for her, usually quite a few). Solid performance at Nats to cap off the season. Would probably place higher if she didn’t play for Toronto.

#15 Parth Jagtap: I’ve played this guy a lot in the past few months, and it feels like he’s the closest to my skill level among active circuit players, though slightly edging me out. Should play more hard tournaments but is very good at two-dot.

#16 Michael Du: Good scaling knowledge of history, can buzz on 2-dot science if Liam isn’t sitting in the next chair, vows to finish a book sometime within the next year. Is a bit salty about not getting any recognition about the Rutgers final game.

#17 Liam Kusalik: An amazing science player, but as opposed to Mati, I take his tossups more than he takes mine. According to the old polls he’s not a bad generalist either, though that knowledge is shadowed on the modern Waterloo A. Brings up the average height of the UW team by a bit.

#18 Raymond Chen: Like Wenying, being a lit specialist on Skraying means his PPG usually isn’t that high, but rest assured he is quite a good quizbowl player.

#19 Gaian Valdegamo: Basically never loses his 1/1 VFA to anyone else in this circuit, still has good coverage of a large part of the distro, and can reliably answer questions about, like, soil compaction and eutectic points. Notable Islam player. C.

#20/21 Gabrielle Clark, Connor Haines: Similar to UBC, I’m not quite sure how to differentiate these two as their relative PPG order seems to switch between tournaments, but they were the core of the Ottawa team that managed to beat Waterloo at Regs and they definitely deserve top 25 spots.

#22 Andrew McCowan: Has a good PPG as the Queens anchor, but isn’t really shadowed by anyone. Haven’t played him much due to geographic reasons.

#23 Nick Edwards: Another solid generalist from McGill; must be something in the Quebec water. College Genies champion, 2023. Looks to be the future of McGill quizbowl, and someone I very much look forward to playing next year.

#24 Albert Li: The Michael to Parth’s Mati. Impressive performances as the history specialist on Toronto’s D2 team. One has to wonder what this list would look like if he booked an earlier flight.

#25 Caleb Ott: Unfortunately didn’t play too many tournaments, but his Reach experience gives him a wide base, and he can put up respectable numbers even at 3-dot. Bit of Waterloo pride for the 25 spot, but he’s definitely the Waterloo player to look out for in 2024.

Honorable mentions:

Owen Riley: If I had a nickel for each time Owen stopped a Canadian team from reaching top bracket at a national tournament by one bonus...

Overall, solid performances at Canadian online mirrors, and performed extremely well at the D2 ICT. A good soloist whose performance can be somewhat at the whim of the packetizer. Would probably be placed somewhere around Milan if he was eligible.

Kane: Biggest Rutgers booster on the circuit.

James Ah Yong, Jared He, Thomas Menill, Micah Colman: A solid group of Waterloo players that all know a decent chunk of the distro but need to just play more quizbowl.

Yadu Kukenthirian: Plays pretty well for it being the middle of the night in Singapore.

[skewit]

Posting on behalf of Wenying Wu.

After much refinement and debugging, I have come up with a foolproof algorithm (I feel I am qualified, as I am a CS minor) for determining the quality of players in our rapidly evolving circuit. To accommodate for the onward march of progress, I will be using the novel Newyorker Under Trivia Siege algorithm specifically trained for Canadian needs.

1. Joyce Xi: Has beaten Ben at a 1v1 (sequence of tossups)
2. ADR, Cormac Beirne, Ian Chow: Has beaten Ben at a 1v1 (round of quizbowl)
3. Henry Atkins, Lia Rathburn, Christopher W. A. Sims, Kais Jessa, Devan Greevy: May be incentivized into returning to Canadian collegiate quizbowl in order to beat Ben at a 1v1
4. Sky Li, Kevin Fan, Adrian Wong: Could probably beat Ben at a 1v1
5. Milan Fernandez, Jay Misuk, Wenying Wu (that's me ), Max Gedajlovic, Sam Hauer, Raymond Chen, Mattias Ehatamm, Liam Kusalik, Michael Du, Parth Jagtap, Andrew McCowan, Nick Edwards, Albert Li, Gaian Valdegamo, Yadu Kukenthiran, Connor Haines, James Ah Yong, Elena Bai, Max Chemtov, John Chen, Gabrielle Clark, Micah Colman, Nadia Dadouki, Alex Galvin, Jacob Garofolo, Jared He, Ishan Joshi, Marcell Maitinsky, Thomas Mennill, Kane Nguyen, Caleb Ott, David Snoddon, Devito Stevanus, Joey Sun, Isaac Thangaraj, Jacob van Oorschot, Amy Wang, Benjamin Yu, Gabrielle Clark, David Snoddon, Russell Nip, James Wang, Benjamin Yu, Kevin Anderson, Henry Olsen, Max Gross, Maude-Sophie Lockman, Liz Van Oorschot: Could possibly beat Ben at a 1v1
6. Other Canadian quizbowlers and my friend Ann: No evidence to suggest they could not beat Ben at a 1v1
[...]
100. Benjamin L. M. Chapman: Guaranteed tie with Ben at a 1v1
101. Gareth Skye Thorlakson
102. Tony Chen: Evidently cannot beat Ben at a 1v1

The NUTS algorithm is available on my GitHub: https://github.com/bendis. If you want to express your gratitude, please review the source code and we can touch base over Microsoft Teams.

[mehatamm]

What a year of quizbowl! This was my first year on the circuit and I loved the sense of community the Canadian circuit has. I feel like I gradually became friends with everyone on this list after meeting them again and again at tournaments. This being my first year, I missed the online tournament era where UBC was actually a part of the circuit, and there's a few people I haven't played against yet. That being said, these rankings are 100% correct and any disagreement will be interpreted as libel.

1. Ian Chow (Toronto):
Ian tops both my regular ballot and my fear ballot. I think Ian literally plays every single category well? I'll never forgot Waterloo A being destroyed by solo Ian at ACF Winter. I'm pretty confident that, put in the situations Tony or Ben were placed in for ICT this year, he would have performed equal or better. Though he is admittedly comparatively scarier at 2-dot than 3-dot difficulty, I think Ian still scales well enough for me to place him here. What puts him atop my fear ballot is that Ian is truly liable to power any tossup at any difficulty or 30 any bonus, so his depths are often hard to predict.

2. Cormac Beirne (McGill):
Cormac wraps out an impressive year leading McGill and putting up impressive numbers in the humanities. According to my rough calculations, Cormac is the player I've gotten the least percentage of lit against this year, and was often much more frustrating to play in that category than combined teams of Wenying and Raymond. I don't think it's reasonable to underrank him because of the recency of ACF Nationals when his statlines at C++ and ARCADIIA exist. It would have been nice to get some more information from ACF Regionals because he seems better on ACF than NAQT, but the vibes I get playing against Cormac gives me all the information I need.

3. Sky Li (Toronto):
Nearly every time a Toronto team won a tournament this year, it was because Sky was on it. I don't play Sky's categories so I have very little indication of their depth of knowledge, but they claim to understand score clues so I am consequently bumping them up several spots. Sky's numbers are crazy any way you look at them, and extra preference has to be given in any case to CS theory heads.

4. Tony Chen (Western):
Tony claims to be going to Toronto next year. I look forward to everyone at Toronto looking worse when playing next to him. Tony is #1 on my ballot of players who are silent for five seconds after buzzing and then inexplicably say the correct answer, and has beaten me to lines from Pied Beauty twice at tournaments this year. A shoutout is due to Tony for reading 14 packets in the ICT car which arguably led to our win, and also for being so much of a Zoomer it disgusts everyone else on the circuit.

5. Milan Fernandez (Niagara):
Milan powers too much at hard tournaments for me to conscionably put him any lower on this list. If he wasn't incentivized to neg so much by his soloing situation, his stats would look much better at every event he played. He is also the best closed Literature player in Canada. Has remarkable mental fortitude, as evidenced by the time he was in my car and I crashed us into a snowdrift.
PS: Milan, if you're reading this, I'm sorry about frauding the Spanish poetry TU at regionals.

6. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto):
Gareth is defined by his selfless unwillingness to steal the bouncebacks that his unthinking teammates freely consume. His sacrifices place him morally above all of his competitors, but quantitatively below five of them. In any case, Gareth's crazy pulls on history are always impressive to watch, and his expressive playstyle makes him probably my favorite opponent across the whole of Canada. Easily the best history player on the circuit.

7. Kevin Fan (McGill):
I personally have never played against Kevin, which was why he was accidentally left off my draft ballot before I saw the nationals stats. I have no idea what he plays or how well, but the few stats I have seem to put him about here.

8. Ben Chapman (Toronto):
Our circuit's resident high school quiz bowl player has had a pretty great year, all things considered. While still being one of the top 2 science players in Canada, Ben has been playing at a high level in several additional categories on top of relieved reacting to hundreds of discord messages. He put up great scores at Regionals, UG Champs and CMST while also defeating Tony in a storied 1v1 at ICT which I hope will be used to win arguments for years to come.

9. Adrian Wong (McMaster):
I would like to remind Adrian that it is never too late to come to Waterloo. His McMaster squad did great this year, with an amazing individual performance at ICT and a win at SCT. I have enjoyed competing with him for lit in every game we've played, and hope to see him still on the circuit next year.

10. Jay Misuk (Western):
I've only played Jay once, but he gave me a pretty good impression of knowing just about everything 3 lines in at 2-dot. I would have liked to see him more this year, hopefully we can get him out for one more ACF Winter.

11. International Master Max Gedajlovic (UBC):
I am yet to play Max due to various bracket kerfuffles, but he appears to play the French defense and some boring d4 opening. Additionally, he once listed six stories from Piazza Tales under short notice. My algorithm places him here.

12. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo):
I think I had a pretty solid debut year, but my general philosophy for this bracket places me behind the generalists listed above. Category stats accounting for teammates seem to put me as the top non-Milan lit player in Canada, and I'm starting to cover more RMPSS and History on my team, but haven't branched out enough to put up generalist numbers. I think my p% at ICT and performances at regs/ug champs should show my scaling ability, at least.

13. Wenying Wu (Toronto):
Wenying has really held down the lit on the Toronto squads she has played on, and judging by MRNA has been expanding her deep knowledge to other categories. Wenying is no longer the only player on the circuit who has read The Blind Owl, but she probably holds that distinction on dozens of other titles, which is part of why she performed so well at nats this year.

14. Sam Hauer (UBC):
Sam Hauer is the player on this list I have the least information about. By the algorithm, he breaks the chain of lit players in the middle of this list.

15. Raymond Chen (Toronto):
There are a lot of comparisons that can be made between Raymond and Wenying, but I chose to place him slightly lower because of his slightly lower scaling and generalism. Raymond is one of the most elite lit players on the circuit and a formidable opponent in all settings, while making up its most important portmanteau.

16. Parth Jagtap (Toronto):
It feels like Parth and I both improved a lot around the same time, and every time I've played him this year it feels like he's gotten significantly better than last time. Parth is terrifying on film tossups and we keep buzzer racing each other to Donne questions. I Hope to see him play more hard quizbowl next year!


17. Michael Du (Waterloo):
Given that Michael seems to always know the answer after our opponents buzz, I briefly considered placing him first on this ballot. Unfortunately, he only converts enough of those for me to place him here. I've teamed with Michael at nearly every tournament and negged him out of more history questions than I can count, and he's been understanding to me the whole way through. Michael has improved significantly in history through the year, knows a suspicious amount about Judaism, and is a better science player than most people think due to the fact that he plays with Liam all the time.

18. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo):
My amazing wonderful perfect science player was freed this year from having to play literature, and is the main part of what makes Waterloo A the best science team in Canada. Liam had great performances at UG Champs and ICT, and would have destroyed MRNA science had he not been so busy making the tournament run smoothly. Liam has also been expanding into Phil and SS recently, which puts him even higher on the list of people I would Always Like To Have On My Team.

19. Gaian Valdegamo (Waterloo):
Gaian remains likely the best VFA player in Canada, and has been rapidly improving his AFA as the season has progressed. The amount of obscure Renaissance art Gaian knows is fairly baffling, and I will always prefer to have him as a teammate than as an opponent for the security he provides.

20. Nick Edwards (McGill):
Some quick takes:
-Nick seems to have had a strong year
-He won ACF Fall with a team of strong rookies
-He is the champion of some odd french form of trivia
-He almost qualified for ICT following an excellent SCT

21. Kane Nguyen (McMaster, honorary Waterloo)
Kane had a great run with Adrian and the rest of McMaster at SCT/ICT this season, showing his VFA, plant bio, and college sports knowledge. I will never forget our game against him when he bravely soloed MRNA.

22. Caleb Ott (Waterloo):
Mark my words, Caleb will be the top scorer on the Waterloo team that 2-peats D2 ICT next year. Caleb started playing quiz bowl at an incredible level, and has been improving to be an excellent FA, Lit, and even Science player?! Once he scales his knowledge up to a 3-dot level it is over for this circuit.

23. Gabrielle Clark (Ottawa)
24. Connor Haines (Ottawa):
How did these 2 manage to get nearly the same ppg at both Fall and Regionals? Big things are happening in Ottawa, and their buzzer speed and history knowledge was scary the two times we played them at Regs.

25. Andrew McCowan (Queens):
I only played Andrew once this year at SCT, and he showed a solid amount of Lit and History knowledge. Has been putting up big numbers for Queens, and is also the GOAT for writing so much of CN and hosting so much at Queens. I hear he is going to Ottawa next year? Scary.


HM: Micah Colman for quietly getting Very Very Good at RMPSS, Yadu Kukenthiran for playing C++ from Singapore, Jared He for bringing up his Real Knowledge massively this year and getting 9 tossups in a game at MRNA, James ah Yong for helping us qualify for IQBT and popping off at C++ (curse you toronto coops), John Chen for scoring high at IQBT, Marcus Forbes-Green for his quietly great performances at regionals and SCT, Albert Li for his crazy Fall and support performance at SCT, Thomas Mennill for his score clue Understanding power and history knowledge, and many more people I am forgetting to mention.
Thanks for the awesome season and supportive environment everyone!

[abovethetreetops]

I've had the pleasure of seeing a lot of the folk on this list in action throughout the past 8 months, and it's been a joy the entire way. For those that I unfortunately didn't see, I hope to see you more in the future.

Also every person is assigned a character from Touhou Project because I felt like it.

1. Sky Li, Toronto. (Yagokoro Eirin, TH8)
Seeing our resident Eirin in action was a treat, even if I didn't see Sky that many times this year. He lives up to the spell card name "genealogy of the sky born". Stunning Sky stats are to the moon and back, and his spell cards only get more impressive as you scale up the difficulty. His fine arts knowledge always stood out to me as exceptional, not to mention his impressive array of spell cards that make him a remarkable backbone across the board for his team. Watching Sky play is a treat to play.

2. Ian Chow, Toronto. (Hijiri Byakuren, TH12)
When he's not sending wave after wave of bullets at you, Ian backs with spell cards that relentlessly punish your mistakes, slowing squeezing you in with a wall of lasers until a lethal shot connects. Especially at 2 dot he profits off every hesistant buzz and especially every neg. I'm consistently impressed by his knowledge base and his extremely steady play under pressure.

3. Kevin Fan, McGill. (Saigyouji Yuyuko, TH7)
Much like Yuyuko, Kevin always seems to get the last word. Kevin matches his danmaku bombardment with equally impressive performance on bonuses. His Nats performance was outstanding, and he seems to play with almost surgical precision. Always seems to bloom into force the longer the game goes on, and while you know the onslaught is coming, there's nothing you can do to dodge it.

4. Cormac Beirne, McGill. (Yakumo Yukari, TH7)
Cormac' knowledge of key subjects seems almost endless, a gap into a void of knowledge. Appears to have no discernable boundary, with an extreme breadth of pan-humanities knowledge. His solo performance at C++ stands out to me as very impressive. However lacks the ability to summon trains.

5. Tony Chen, Western.(Flandre, TH6)
Let the record show he wanted to be Cirno.
Much like the actual Flandre, I've never actually seen Tony in action, but the stats speak for themselves. Certainly he matches Flandre's flexibility, putting up a very solid showing across the board, the resulting unpredictableness striking fear into every player he faces. Also tops it off with excellent scaling across the board as you increase in difficulty, meaning he'll be a challenge to face regardless of your skill level.

6. Ben Chapman, Toronto. (Okazaki Yumemi, TH3)
Ben doesn't exactly shoot strawberry infused crosses at you like Yumemi, but he might as well. Individually hard to dodge, Ben just seems to have so many projectiles to fire at a moment's notice. The most consistent science player I've seen, with a stunning array of other topics under his belt. It was a treat playing against him at Winter. Big fan of his questions too. Ben Deez Nuts.

7. Gareth Thorlakson, Toronto. (Izayoi Sakuya, TH6)
Some of my fondest memories include making it to Stage 5 and meeting Gareth. Like Sakuya, Gareth seems to be able to distort time, excelling at hitting that buzzer just quickly enough to consistently make it count. While comparatively more specialized compared to the others above him, his history knowledge is unparalleled and the resulting barrage of throwing knives is diffcult to outmatch.

8. Adrian Wong, McMaster. (Reiuji Utsuho,TH11)
Utsuho has radiation warnings appear every time she starts a new spell card. I picture that same thing whenever I start a tossup with Adrian in the room. Has tokamak-levels of reality warping ability and can very quickly run away with a game singlehandedly. Scales well with difficulty and it was a real pleasure to read for him at SCT, not to mention his incredible ICT gaming. Don't look at him directly, he's brighter than the sun.

9. Wenying Wu, Toronto. (Kirisame Marisa)
I don't think Wenying has a massive laser at her disposal but I wouldn't be surprised if she did. Her Regionals play was great and her literature buzzes stood out to me as some of the finest of that whole tournament. Undisputed master of shitposting in all of Canada and all around excellent vibes.

10. Milan Fernandez, Niagara. (Yasaka Kanako, TH10)
Milan's strength at quizbowl is matched by his force of will. I don't know how he has the willpower to consistently solo at high levels. But it works, and much like Kanako, seems to be a god in his own right. I have fond memories of getting my ass demolished by him (and Ian!) at Winter, and his Regionals play was steady. Scales very well, by some divine virtue.

11. Andrew McCowan, Queen's. (Houraisan Kaguya, TH8)
Andrew's another strong humanities player with his strong fine arts and beliefs knowledge standing out to me especially. Covering that much of the distribution with the depth that he has makes me think he had some kind of immortality elixer at his disposal. Playing him at mRNA was a great time, and I have fond personal memories of him from high school and early university. A stand-up guy.

12. Max Gedajlovic, UBC. (Houjuu Nue, TH12)
I only met Max (and Sam) virtually reading for them at mRNA. I'm not too familiar with what goes on out on the West Coast, but his play definitely left an impression on me. Has good coverage around the board and his stats are there to back it up. Also a great guy in the community.

13. Jay Misuk, Western. (Sariel, TH1)
It feels weird writing this. Nonetheless Jay's stats are there to back up his formidable play and coverage, with his history knowledge especially notable.

14. Raymond Chen, Toronto. (Alice Margatroid)
I like Raymond, he's a swell guy. Like Wenying his literature performance at Regionals impressed me a lot and he forms an integral part of UofT's dominant squad this year. I don't think he's a puppetmaster, but he's Alice solely for his feud with Wenying.

15. Mattias Ehatamm, Waterloo. (Miko, TH13)
I first saw some of Waterloo's legendary ICT championship team at Fall. I was astounded by the progress they made by the time Regionals came around, and the Waterloo-McMaster SCT game I read for them was some of the most exciting quizbowl I've ever had the joy of witnessing. Within all of that was Mati, who's progress I witnessed firsthand. Mati is a fantastic player with his literature work being delightful. Miko's final spell card is called "Newborn Divine Spirit" and Mati's play certainly matches Miko's mesmerizing barrage. The 5/0/0 performance was downright unbelievable. Extremely excited where they'll take the game next year.

16. Sam Hauer, UBC. (Mima, TH2)
See: Max. Another player I wish I could've seen in action more, Sam was a treat. Love his accent work. Solid work at C++.

17. Liam Kusalik, Waterloo. (Kaku Seiga, TH13)
I've already said some things about Waterloo as a whole but Liam glues the whole team together. Solid science play combined with good catch-all knowledge on the back-end results in a very solid player. Extremely excited where they'll take the game next year.

18. Michael Du, Waterloo. (Futo, TH13)
Michael's performance was also outstanding this year. My one regret was not getting to see Waterloo play more. His solid knowledge across history and science definitely stood out to me at Regionals. Extremely excited where they'll take the game next year.

19. Gaian Valdegamo, Waterloo. (Kasodani Kyouko, TH13)
Excellent Fine Arts coverage which really help to flesh out the winning ICT comp. Pleasure to read for and got plenty of good buzzes at SCT. Extremely excited where they'll take the game next year.

20. Parth Jagtap, Toronto. (Toramaru Shou, TH12)
Touhou 12 as a whole is very fond of the idea of curved lasers, and Parth definitely has that energy. I only saw him at SCT, but his coverage seemed unpredictable yet remarkably consistent at hitting when it counted. When you think he's steady, the clarification comes with a series of dazzling buzzes.

21. Kane Nguyen, McMaster. (Shiki Eiki, TH9)
Kane's performance on the McMaster - McGill B game at SCT was crazy, I think he powered like 5 questions in a row, including a few first-lines, to a powerful sentence. Otherwise his Regionals performance and beyond was very solid.

22. Connor Haines, Ottawa. (Komeiji Koishi, TH11)
I have made no apologies for comparing quizbowlers in this country to fictional anime girls and I certainly don't intend to start now. Connor consistently impresses me with his ability to pull things from the depths of his subconsciousness. Backs up his strong history knowledge with good literature and overall broad coverage.

23. Gabrielle Clark, Ottawa. (Komeiji Satori, TH11)
I first played Gabrielle back in high school and she's as terrifying as she was half a decade ago, with outstanding recollection. Her and Connor shine as a pair. Weaker on literature, but altogether solid with very good beliefs coverage.

24. Albert Li, Toronto. (Murasa Minamitsu, TH12)
Him and Parth are a winning combination, and his performance at Fall was memorable to both myself and my club. Looking forward to seeing him scale to harder difficulties.

25. Nicolas Edwards, McGill. (Kochiya Sanae, TH10)
Maybe he'll get his personal giant mecha robot soon too, just like Sanae. Until that day comes and the sea splits, I look forward to playing against him. Solid all-round player with good buzzes throughout the humanities and generally just a great guy.

Honourable mentions :
Listed in order of institution, to the best of my ability.

Waterloo: Caleb Ott, Micah Colman, Thomas Mennill, Jared He, James Ah Yong
Toronto: David Snodden, Angus Paterson, Joey Sun, Isaac Thangaraj
McMaster: Adil Haider
McGill: Elena Bai, Jacob Garofalo, Liz van Oorschot, Jacob Van Oorschot, Devito Stevanus, Max Chemtov
Western: Yadu Kukenthiran (shoutout for playing from Singapore)
Carleton: Kevin Anderson, Benjamin Yu
Queen's: Samir Toubache, Charlie Botterell, Alex Galvin
Ottawa: Maude-Sophie Lockman, Ishan Joshi, Daniel Vorotyntsev

[IncompetentIdiot]

Anonymous voter "" has asked me to post their ballot.

1. Tony Chen
2. Sky Li
3. Kevin Fan
4. Benjamin Chapman
5. Ian Chow
6. Adrian Wong
7. Cormac Beirne
8. Gareth Thorlakson
9. Jay Misuk
10. Max Gedajlovic
11. Mattias Ehatamm
12. Wenying Wu
13. Milan Fernandez
14. Raymond Chen
15. Sam Hauer
16. Parth Jagtap
17. Liam Kusalik
18. Andrew McCowan
19. Nicholas Edwards
20. Michael Du
21. Gabrielle Clark
22. Connor Haines
23. Caleb Ott
24. Kane Nguyen
25. Gaian Valdegamo

[MordecaiRickles]

1. Tony Chen (Western)
Sorry snowflakes, the results are in: Tony's a beast. Tony's maybe the only person in the circuit who's genuinely a top player at two of the big three (science and lit) even if he's by all accounts the worst player ever at the third (history). He's also remarkably good at RMPSS for someone who didn't know what modern-day country Jesus was born in. Indeed, when you weigh the strength of Tony's performances against the adversity he needed to overcome in knowing so many wrong things, he's had quite an impressive year! Whether or not Tony is the best player in the circuit, he's the funniest to rank first, so I'm just going to go for it.
2. Cormac Beirne (McGill)
OK now that I've ranked a known enemy of the McGill club at #1 I can sneak in some in-group bias here. That group being moi seul, babyyyy. In all honesty I don't think I've always been in top form this season, which is maybe inevitable when the only practice you get for a year and a half is on mid-2010s reach and Paul Bunyan All Onion. Henry's groundbreaking jokes aside, I also think I did noticeably suffer from an unwillingness to put in work to improve elsewhere in compensation. Still, my inconsistency relative to the other people around me can be exaggerated and while my floor was not great, I think I had one of the stronger modal performances and some of the better peaks. Nats might not have been the best thing I've ever done, but I'm happy enough to end my degree being about as good at the highest levels as I was at the lowest when I first played quizbowl as a younger, brighter, shorter-named freshman at ACF Fall 2019.
3. Kevin Fan (McGill)
Kevin's arguably the best history/modern world player in the circuit at the highest levels and is most likely better than all the non-lit players in the circuit at lit and non-science players at science. He also has some big holes in his knowledge (consider: all of amhist) which through deliberate lack of exposure to the canon have remained gloriously unpatched. The result is that he's probably still the best 4-dot player in the circuit but a little behind the top at 2-3 dots, so I've put him here. I've made a solemn vow never to say a kind word about Kevin, however, so while you could (and should) rank him highly, know that nothing will bring me greater joy than seeing him finish outside the top 10.
4. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto)
Yeah, yeah, I know, "the loud guy who gives the fist bumps?" But did you know that as well as being a very friendly person, Gareth is also quietly (metaphorically speaking) good at quizbowl? He probably doesn't get as many bonkers firstlines as Kevin but is easily the most complete history player in the circuit and even managed to beat me - the #2 science player according to 100% of the evidence! - in a science 1v1. He talks a lot about how Sky kept outscoring him when they played together but the results were actually quite close most of the time and it came as no surprise to me that he was Toronto's best player in the Nats playoffs. The social taboo against drinking during in-person tournaments is the only thing holding him back from first place.
5. Sky Li (Toronto)
Sky is also a beast and deserves the first place rankings they've received so far. I don't think I quite agree with Max's characterization of their results, in that it felt as though there was usually one or two people outperforming Sky each tournament, including from within the Toronto club. But who those people were varied from tournament-to-tournament, while Sky stayed at or around the top with maddening consistency. While I couldn't personally rank a Torontonian above me and will be outwardly raging should they finish first, I would secretly be pretty happy with the result on account of their real friendliness/helpfulness with the circuit in general, Canadian Novice in particular, and uh I guess talent or whatever.
6. Ian Chow (Toronto)
It's actually somewhat frustrating that Ian has wound up this low when on several of my draft ballots I had him in first place. Ian's knowledge is an unusual combination of highly general (which can get overshadowed when playing on teams with strong specialist coverage) and highly idiosyncratic (which can lead to big swings in how much he vibes with certain sets) but these are definitely strengths more than they are weaknesses. In the end I decided that Gareth's Nats and Sky's consistency probably put them above him, but Ian's a legend, seems able to pull 30s out of thin air in a way nobody else can, and I hope he gets a few more high rankings.
7. Milan Fernandez (Niagara)
I'm gonna try to keep the write-ups shorter for the rest of the ballot but Milan is definitely a contender for the best lit player, best overall fine arts player, and came almost out of nowhere as one of the best modern world history players in the circuit. Might get more early buzzes than anyone else and has done a very admirable job soloing as, theoretically, a specialist. Iconic, in the least blasphemous sense of the word.
8. Adrian Wong (McMaster)
Adrian was pretty clearly playing on the same level as the other top generalists this year and is only held back by having fewer opportunities to get big ppgs on strong teams. Had an excellent SCT, unsurprisingly, and continued on to have an excellent ICT, which went somewhat underappreciated in the wake of Waterloo's win. Negative utilitarian?
9. Ben Chapman (Toronto)
I've ranked Ben slightly more conservatively than some other people because his main category is easily the least competitive in the circuit, and I'm not certain he's quite caught up with the people above him as a humanities generalist. Still, Ben's improvement over the past year is much more dramatic than this ranking reflects in isolation and given that he's somehow only a second year I have really no doubt he'll be topping future polls in short order.
10. Jay Misuk (Western)
Didn't play much and obviously a bit rusty but I don't think many people in the circuit could get the numbers he was getting next to Tony. I haven't had the chance to play him as many times as I did most people on this ballot but he was always friendly and a fun Yin to Tony's Yang at SCT.
11. Max Gedajlovic (British Columbia)
Max has finally escaped from Lia's shadow and the quizbowl speaks for itself. Very good on NAQT in particular and on really any old, bad set. Also one of the funnier people in the circuit and eminently reasonable. Genuinely wishing him the best of luck in his GM quest next year, though I have no doubt he won't need it.
12. Sam Hauer (British Columbia)
Always performs similarly to Max and seems to scale very well. It was a lot of fun finally getting to meet him in person at CMST, where I had the chance to witness his impeccable Slavoj Zizek impression (of last year's ballot fame) in person.
13. Wenying Wu (Toronto)
I feel like I hadn't actually interacted with Wenying much before this year, which is kind of odd. Has said a number of cursed things but is generally amiable. I think she's largely interchangeable with Raymond, if not literally the same person, but I've ranked her higher because she seemed to be a slightly better generalist at MRNA. I hear she also buzzed on the Ashes of Time clue at Penn Bowl which is sick.
14. Raymond Chen (Toronto)
Raymond's like Wenying if she was contributing a lot more to the eradication of humanity's most perfidious disease.
15. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo)
Mattias' improvement has been nuts, and there's a very real case to be made for him as the circuit's best lit player. After round 4 of regionals, he had 11 lit tossups to his name, almost twice as many as anyone else. I decided to give the edge to Raymond and Wenying, who have proven beyond any doubt that their lit scales to 4 dots, but I'm pretty confident Mattias will do the same next year. After my own ICT ambitions went unrealized last year, I have a lot of respect for Mattias being willing to put the work in to pull off a pretty perfect tournament. Should read less book.
16. Andrew McCowan (Queens)
Andrew's probably a pretty similar generalist to Max or Sam but has continued to have fewer opportunities to prove himself on full teams at hard events. He had a great Winter Closed, though, and if he finds himself on Ottawa A next year I could see him jumping up a fair bit on people's ballots.
17. Parth Jagtap (Toronto)
Parth is someone I rarely play for some reason, but his results seem to just keep getting better, including a very commendable job this year as a fourth on Toronto's UGCT team and a very strong, team-leading performance at SCT and ICT. Laughed quite loudly during Banshees of Inisherin, so I've put him above Michael Du.
18. Michael Du (Waterloo)
It was unclear for most of the year how Michael and Mati compared, especially after Michael's baller ARCADIA performance. After ICT, I've got to give it to Mati but Michael is another player who saw crazy improvement and will I'm sure keep making waves next year. Kind of reminds me of Kevin, which is deeply troubling for the future of CanQB.
19. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo)
I don't know how Ben, Liam, and Tony compare on Science, but it's clear Liam is one of the few very strong 4/4 science players in the circuit and always gets impressive buzzes outside of that, mostly (that I've noticed) in Phil/SS. Waterloo has gone to great lengths this year to sabotage the player poll by putting up bewilderingly variable team statlines so who knows where he's supposed to go.
20. Yadu Kukenthiran (Western)
Yadu staying up for all of C++ and somehow improving as the tournament progressed was one of the most impressive things anyone in this circuit has ever done. Maybe the only non-generalist history player in the circuit, which mad him an unusual but very effective complement to Tony the past three years. Fears ChatGPT, who will soon push us all out of the player poll.
21. Caleb Ott (Waterloo)
I suppose I shouldn't say that a two-time reach nats champ came out of the blue but some of Caleb's performances have been pretty remarkable. Waterloo players are impossible to rank but it seems pretty notable that the Caleb/Micah teams have twice finished above the Mati/Michael teams and that Caleb outscored Liam on the same team at ARCADIA.
22. Albert Li (Toronto)
Probably the best player at ACF Fall, including a full sweep of the VFA thanks to Kais' painting bot. Seems to have had a very good dynamic when playing with Parth and it's very unfortunate that pre-ICT weather turned out the way it did. Don't know anything about the fellow otherwise but he contributed helpfully to Canadian Novice playtesting.
23. Nick Edwards (McGill)
Nick has pretty much completed his development into a strong 2-dot player and has established a pretty strong grasp on parts of the canon he didn't excel at last year. Also a fantastic reach buzzer, a genies champ, and made for a great supporting player at ARCADIA and the UGCT qualifier. He will I'm sure do a great job leading McGill's D2 team next year and I hope he'll get the chance to establish himself at 3 dots now that "the old generation" (his words) of me and Kevin have moved on. Maybe the world's worst science bonus contributor though.
24. Jacob Garofalo (McGill)
Has not played a huge amount but was fantastic at novice and not much worse than Nick at Fall and Winter. I hope he plays a bit more next year, his immediate grasp of the lit canon would bode very well for McGill's d2 chances if he did. Acts?
25. Gaian Valdegamo (Waterloo)
Seems low to rank a strong scorer on an ICT winning-team but what can you do when everyone's so good. I don't know how Gaian and I compare on VFA now, I think I was pretty solidly better in the past but I've since developed something of a negging problem and Gaian's evidently done a lot to close the gap. Whatever the case, he'll probably have the clear best 1/1 in the circuit next year and I'm sure will continue to improve as a generalist what with the whole Waterloo arms race situation being as it is.
EDIT: Nevermind top scored Nats VFA, I'm a god I'm a god I'm a god.

HM: Max Chemtov and Jacob Van Oorschot slipped somewhat under the radar with all of the names we now have to remember but made for truly excellent teammates at Nats, which very few people in the circuit have done. Henry Olsen, Nabhaan Farooqi, and Elena Bai are all other very capable McGill players who should play more things. Micah Colman, Jared He, and James Ah Yong are all good enough to be ranked but should have Tonya'd a couple of their teammates if they wanted me to fit them all in. Gabby and Connor from Ottawa are also very good and scaled up surprisingly well given their lack of play the past few years. Isaac Thangaraj from Toronto impressed at Fall and ARCADIA. Lots of other people are good.

[Fado Alexandrino]

1. Ian
2. Sky
3. Tony
4. Gareth
5. Ben
6. Kevin
7. Cormac
8. Adrian
9. Milan
10. Mati
11. Max
12. Jay
13. Wenying
14. Sam
15. Raymond
16. Michael
17. Andrew
18. Parth
19. Liam
20. Albert
21. Edwards
22. Caleb
23. Gaian
24. Kane
25. James Ah Yong

HM: Connor, Gabrielle, Micah Colman

[apoquet]

here is a ballot and some (excessive) thoughts. please feel free to ignore my essays if you don’t want to read that much. I am too tired to do a writeup for each player, but might add something later.

1. Tony Chen
2. Sky Li
3. Cormac Beirne
4. Kevin Fan
5. Ian Chow
6. Gareth Thorlakson
7. Benjamin Chapman
8. Adrian Wong
9. Milan Fernandez
10. Max Gedajlovic
11. Sam Hauer
12. Jay Misuk
13. Wenying Wu
14. Raymond Chen
15. Mattias Ehatamm
16. Liam Kusalik
17. Parth Jagtap
18. Andrew McCowan
19. Michael Du
20. Nicolas Edwards
21. Gaian Valdegamo
22. Yadu Kukenthiran
23. Gabrielle Clark
24. Connor Haines
25. Albert Li

Here is a list of honourable mentions. As many people have said, this was a super competitive year, and there are far more than 25 people who deserve recognition. I can’t fit everyone on that list, but all of you should be proud!

-former fellow Glebe kids Caleb Ott and Micah Colman: watching the transformation of Glebe from an unknown school with a silly name to a school as feared and highly regarded as UTS or Lisgar over the past couple years has been absolutely amazing, and these two were a large part of that effort. I am not at all surprised that their talent has translated to university QB, and look forward to seeing what they can accomplish over the next few years. On the topic of former Glebe kids, I hope to see some more amazing Glebe rookies show up next year. If Guelph registers for a tournament, you should be scared.
-James Ah Yong and Jared He: Waterloo’s DII SCT/ICT team next year looks scary, and these two (along with the aforementioned Glebe pair) are a large part of that. Not looking forward to taking that team on at all.
-Kevin Anderson, Benjamin Yu, and Andrew Wilson: in addition to the Ottawa resurgence, Carleton has also taken a big step forward this year. Shoutout to Andrew Wilson in particular, who had a solid MRNA performance that included a strong victory against us.

__

In lieu of a properly structured community ballot, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the year from the perspective of a club on the fringes of CanQB. I’m not going to get into details here, but this was a really hard year for our club. I will be attending Queen’s for grad school (sorry for the bait Ottawa) but I have no intention of holding a leadership role in this club again, in large part because of how stressful the last 1.5 years have been. Note that this is not because of any current club members, nor is this a personal attack on anyone in particular. If I didn’t have an amazing group of fellow club members supporting me through this year, I would probably have given up a while ago.

To anyone from Queen’s who reads this thread, thanks for all of the support you showed this year, whether you staffed, helped out with admin stuff, or even if you were just a positive, enjoyable presence at practice. I am super optimistic about the club as it now stands, and I believe that all of you will work to ensure that the club is a great space going forward. There are too many people to shoutout by name, but thank you to:

-Alex Galvin, for your friendship and support, even through hard times.
-Caryn Xie, for making all of our amazing graphics and being an unfailingly positive voice in the club.
-Lauren MacDonnell and Charlie Botterell, for taking a leap of faith and donning the mantle of co-president despite only having been around for 8 months.
-Other people who don’t want to be named here, you know who you are, and you are awesome!

Okay, that’s enough talking about my own club. I’d like to thank everyone who directed or staffed a tournament this year. In particular, shoutout to James, Maude-Sophie, Anson, and everyone else at uOttawa and Carleton for their efforts in restarting those clubs. It’s awesome that QB in Ottawa has survived the pandemic, and the thanks for that goes to all of you.

I’d like to use this ballot (or more appropriately, essay) to give thanks to everyone in this circuit who has contributed something, however large or small, but who would not otherwise be recognized in this thread. Due to the grassroots structure of this activity, and the fairly insular nature of CanQB as a whole, a large number of tasks naturally fall onto a small group of dedicated people that tend to be more socially prominent, and those people are adequately thanked (as they should be!). However, many others who make super awesome contributions (but might not be as active in spaces like CanQB) fall through the cracks. That being said, thank you to everyone who contributed to their own club or this community as a whole this year. No matter how small you might feel those contributions were, I can guarantee you that something as simple as being kind and funny at practice can make a huge difference to those around you.

In this vein, I wanted to take a moment to recognize the efforts of the people who have successfully started up a club at Alberta. I have never spoken to any of these people so I don’t know who exactly to commend, but shoutout to their current exec team of Edward Byfield, Marko Stefanov, and Navdeep Badhan (sorry to anyone at Alberta I neglected to mention due to ignorance; this message is for you too!). I do feel that the Queen’s club suffers from (relative) geographic isolation, but our situation is completely incomparable to Alberta, who basically have no prospects for playing anything in-person without spending a ton of money on travel. Despite this, and the fact that all (I think?) of their players had no prior QB experience, they still attended numerous difficult online tournaments and put on a strong showing. Massive props to all of you for your dedication and effort in getting the club going and attending tournaments! I hope that Calgary gets a club so the western circuit can host some real in-person tournaments soon. (also, shoutout for being one of only two QB Instagram accounts to follow me!)

That’s about all I have to say. I apologize if I spent too long complaining about my own lot at Queen’s. That really was not the intent of this post, since I had a great time with our club, met many amazing people, and would not change my experience for anything. I just want to redirect some recognition towards some people that deserve it, but would not otherwise be noticed (obviously, no disrespect intended to the people who are fundamental in making this circuit run; you are all amazing too!). To everyone who contributed to this community, regardless of whether you helped out in a big or small way, thank you! This circuit is amazingly healthy, and I’m very excited to see how it grows from here.

One final note at the conclusion of this excessively long post: I’ve been too positive in my writeup, so I feel that I should shake things up a bit to end things off. To the rest of CanQB: camaraderie and well-wishing aside, know that you are still my competition. I have spent far too long as a bully of the lower bracket; soon, I move my bullying to the upper bracket (and beyond). Stay on your toes or expect a rude awakening.

[Fado Alexandrino]

The community ballot is difficult for any individual to do because they don't see the inside workings of all clubs. But here's my shot at it:

1. Henry Atkins
Henry is the community member I wish I was when I stopped playing. Henry not only continues to direct tournaments, but he also engages the community with the sets that he writes and edits. Henry is the main community member bridging the gap between the schools in the circuit. He also drove me home from Novice, which must count for something.
Comparable: MACKENZIE KING STATION -- RIDEAU CENTRE

2. James Wang
James has done significant work in re-establishing Ottawa as a major circuit member with participation not seen since the late 00s. James directed a hugely successful ACF Fall and staffs various events throughout the circuit, including SCT.
Comparable: CAMPUS STATION -- UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA

3. Sky Li
As the fearless leader of Toronto Quizbowl, Sky has done excellent work ensuring that the overall most convenient location to travel to continues to host multiple important tournaments.
Comparable: HURDMAN STATION

4. Andrew McCowan
In contrast to Toronto, it's not easy being situated at one of the least convenient places to travel to. However, Andrew has continued to do an excellent job at getting and retaining Queens players, while advocating for accessible tournaments and hosting Penn Bowl again. Andrew also organized the only high school quizbowl tournament in the circuit this year. Though not directly related to the collegiate circuit this year, it will hopefully gave those attendees a glimpse of what is to come and piqued their interest in the circuit next year.
Comparable: BARRHAVEN CENTRE

5. Raymond Chen
Raymond started a lot of the scheduling discussions in this year's schedule and almost single handedly allowed the CMST mirror to happen, albeit in the middle of a hospital.
Comparable: RIVERSIDE STATION

6. Nadia Dakdouki
Nadia helped put McGill on the map as an in person host for the first time through hosting Regionals. Nadia will serve in McGill's student government next year, which not only shows her dedication to the school, but also hopefully means McGill shows up to ICT next year in a private jet and limo. Nadia helped connect Quebec to the rest of the circuit.
Comparable: LeBRETON STATION

7. Miriam Tam
From an outsider's perspective, Miriam seems to do a lot of work internally at Waterloo despite not being a "big name" community member outside the club. All the social media posts, the wonderfully designed practice announcements, are all Miriam's doing -- and it works. Winning D2 ICT aside, Waterloo has sent numerous teams to almost all tournaments. Like Queens, it's unfortunate that Waterloo is all the way out west and not the greatest school to travel to for eastern schools, but the split sites allowed Waterloo to host a successful mRNA.
Comparable: TERRY FOX STATION

8. Max Gedajlovic
How could someone not in the circuit be so important in the circuit? Max hosts the most poppin discord in all of Canadian Quizbowl, which brought together everyone for fun, games, and Quizbowl during the pandemic. It is still a lively place now that practices are mostly in person.
Comparable: BAYSHORE STATION

9. Cormac Beirne
A one-two punch connecting McGill and French Canada with the Ontario schools.
Comparable: PLACE D'ORLEANS

10. Kevin Fan
We might know Kevin best as someone who brings together the circuit at the end of the season with his work with the polls, but he also is involved in many regular season events not just at McGill but also in Ottawa. A real two-layered member of the community.
Comparable: ST. LAURENT STATION

[IncompetentIdiot]

Alright, I wasn't planning on doing a ballot this year because all I have to go off is what I remember of people a year ago, but reading through the other ballots has made me all too aware of the fact that there are quite a few honours to defend and others insufficiently wounded. Beyond the top 10ish it'll be even worse.

1. Sky Li
☁🌤🌧🌨🌩⛈🌥🌦
(I agree with what Cormac said about their consistency, but from the stats it sure seems like Sky is just consistently great on complete teams in a way that no one else matches. I tried to find someone justifiably better than Sky based on more than a result or two and I couldn't. A real all-weather player.)

2. Cormac Beirne
My ofttime nemesis, occasional teammate is really good, actually, as evidenced by his leading power rates. I've always cursed the day when he would become better than me, and I think we can all conclude based on our same-team results at regular difficulty that that day has passed. I believe someone mentioned that our nationals team had less of a shadow than Toronto, but I'm not sure it's actually true that any Toronto players overlap more than he and I do. On the other hand, it's definitely correct that he ought to have tried a whole lot harder to carry me to a natty, and I might have given a thought or two about ranking him above Sky if it had been us up there beating Chicago A. Would that have been so much to ask?

3. Gareth Thorlakson
Circumstances have conspired to prevent me from meeting Gareth in regular quizbowl since he somehow secured a visa to solo 2020 MWT (the heyday of the likes of Akhil Garg, Colin Veevers, and Raymond Chen), so I don't have a lot to go off here aside from everyone else's glowing opinion. Anyway, I remembered that Gareth top scored Eminent Victorians and deservingly bumped him up three spots.

4. Ian Chow
I was scared of Ian Chow, I am scared of Ian Chow, will I ever not be scared of Ian Chow?

5. Kevin Fan
My hunch is that I peaked at regular difficulty two years ago and I'm now a borderline top 5 player who happens to scale well at nationals (and I think I benefit a bit from certain categories like current events and linguistics being unusually well written there). While my ego welcomes anyone who does, I won't rank myself above any of the individuals above who, in my opinion, clearly have my number at the average tournament. or idk maybe you guys could try getting just three questions a game at nats lol?

6. Ben Chapman
On the weekend I told Cormac that I intended to rank Ben Chapman first overall if I could find the stats to back it up. Unfortunately, he took advantage of my vulnerable emotional state after we visited the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial to whisper vile calumnies in my ear. (I've been hearing a lot of criticism from people with not a lot of science buzzes.) But I don't think we have long to wait until Ben forces the Toronto olds into retirement and claims his rightful title.

7. Tony Chen
I've already heard things like "this take is worse than your ballot last year", but I've checked and I don't think the Charter actually says anywhere that University of Toronto Faculty of Law attendees are owed substantive rights. Even if Tony is possibly second only to Ian Chow in the dread that playing him strikes in my heart, I'm just not convinced that he has the same depth as the players I've ranked ahead of him. Nonetheless, I count myself incredibly lucky that I will never have to face him again to defend this ranking.

8. Milan Fernandez
He was one of the deepest specialists on the circuit in my time, and it seems like he has gotten even better since. While I'll always endorse any Toronto standout's departure, it's a real shame he chose this moment to abandon the concept of having teammates (a postmodernist dramatic exercise? I respect it either way).

9. Raymond Chen
I think Raymond Chen has been underranked as long as I've been playing quizbowl. Even if you ignore my previous draft where I confused him with Raymond Wang from Cornell and put him above Tony, performances like his Owen Riley-surpassing 15 powers at C++ remind me that he has much deeper knowledge than he pretends. You also have to keep in mind that he usually plays tournaments from the lab, where (I can only assume) he cures cancer at the same time, so that must be pretty distracting.

10. Adrian Wong
Adrian Wong has weirdly flown under my radar over the past few years so I don't have too much to say here, but the backbone of the Mac team deservedly rounds out both my top 10 and the list of people I feel obligated to provided writeups for. Also another great Eminent Victorians performer.

11. Sam Hauer

12. Wenying Wu

13. Max Gedajlovic

14. Mattias Ehatamm

15. Jay Misuk

16. Michael Du

17. Andrew McCowan

18. Liam Kusalik

19. Parth Jagtap

20. Nicolas Edwards

21. Albert Li

22. Caleb Ott

23. Connor Haines

24. Gabrielle Clark

25. Micah Colman

HMs: shoutouts to my plucky nats teammates Max Chemtov, who I omitted because it's bad form to rank someone above their Erdős number (5), and Jacob van Oorschot, friend of the trees; Sarah Miller-Briggs, the Ottawa spectator I press-ganged mid-game into playing half of Novice; and of course, the one, the only Devito Stevanus.

[JaredJHe]

Wanted to use my community ballot to shout-out the Waterloo execs:

Miriam Tam for reading at like, every practice. An integral member of the UW exec team, Miriam works tirelessly to design and post announcements to Waterloo's Instagram account, Discord, and even (just checked) the forgotten Facebook page.

Mattias Ehatamm for spearheading the quest for the new buzzer system. Finally, no more slapbowl! Unfortunately, I can no longer use my strategy of hitting the table the loudest to get buzzes.

Gaian Valdegamo, who is coming to the tail end of a very successful presidency that saw Waterloo host its first in-person tournament in 5 years.

Liam Kusalik, who TD'd said tournament. He rounds out the four who have absolutely hammered away at the monstrosity that is WUSA red tape and helped pare down the massive backlog of tournaments with unfinished business. This was a task that was looking like it was going to snowball into something insurmountable so these guys really stepped up in a big way.

It's much harder to talk about the internal workings of other clubs, but to all staffers -- readers, scorekeepers, tournament directors, helpers -- a big thank you. There's too many people to name here, but every tournament I went to was well put together and had a great, positive environment. I think it's no surprise that the guy who might've staffed every tournament I attended, Joe Su, won a very deserving Carper award. Congrats!

Piggybacking off of Andrew (who himself has done an excellent job supporting the Queens quizbowl scene!), it's really great to see Ottawa, Carleton, and Alberta develop into robust clubs. It's kind of crazy that the Canadian circuit was able to split-site a 2 dot tournament this year. Very excited for what's to come.

Finally, a special shout-out to David Snoddon who liveblogged ICT and made me excited about some lame trivia game hundreds of kilometers away.

Thanks to everyone who continuously makes the circuit an awesome environment, and thanks everyone for a great year of quizbowl!

[Fado Alexandrino]

Rookies:

1. Mati
2. Michael
3. Caleb
4. Micah
5. Max Chemtov
6. Isaac Thangaraj
7. Jacob Garofalo
8. Kevin Anderson
9. Max Gross
10. James

HM: LvO, Adil Haider, Maude-Sophie, Henry Olsen, Max from Ottawa

ROTY in our hearts: Devito

[MordecaiRickles]

Rookie Ballot:

1. Mattias Ehatamm
2. Michael Du
3. Caleb Ott
4. Jacob Garofalo
5. Max Chemtov
One of a relatively small number to play nats as a rookie and did a very good job of it, which wasn't surprising after his similarly strong Winter Closed. Unfortunate that he started quizbowl at the end of his degree, with another couple years we'd have made a Kais of him yet.
6. Micah Colman
Did similarly to and occasionally better than Caleb.
7. Isaac Thangaraj
Besides a strong ACF Fall, he also did a good job putting up points next to Gareth at ARCADIA, which can't be very easy for a first year quizbowler.
8. Henry Olsen
New Henry, like Old Henry, is an American with minor high school experience who excels at NAQT-core content, especially boomer music, sports trash, and Americana. He's also a very solid philosophy player, which is unusual for a McGill novice but much appreciated.
9. James Wang
James barely played anything but was good when he did.
10. Kevin Anderson
Stood out as immediately good at novice and continued to put of good numbers at other events but there are a bunch of Ottawa-based players who could have been put in this spot and deserve all the credit they can get, even if I can't fit everyone on the one ballot.

Community Ballot:

Joe Su earned his carper, staffed lots of things, underrated McGill throughout the year as expected, and along with the other Consensus execs introduced a great new element to the trivia calendar which I hope will continue to establish itself as a circuit mainstay.
Henry Atkins staffed and helped run a number of tournaments, particularly in Ottawa, and was very active in helping that part of the circuit reassert itself this year. Also produced the best side event of the year along with Sheena Li.
Sky Li, Ben Chapman, and Raymond Chen were all very involved in circuit discussions and in helping to get Canadian Novice off the ground and into the stat counts of the youths.
James Wang did a lot to get Ottawa up and going again and selflessly (selfishly?) staffed most things instead of playing, sacrificing the most valuable prize the circuit has to offer: rookie poll cred.
Andrew McCowan has also done a lot to keep his club's presence felt in the circuit and has directed several tournaments to much acclaim.
Russell Valerio and Nabhaan Farooqi are members of the McGill club who haven't been super active in circuit discussions but have done a lot for the club this year. Russell in particular has driven to, staffed, and paid for more tournaments than is reasonable and volunteered to suffer through D1 SCT and Winter Closed with the rest of McGill A. Nabhaan has been very present and helpful at practices, counterbalancing the negative energy I try to bring.

Community Anti-Ballot:

Kevin Fan has selflessly run these polls for three years now, but has otherwise been a pretty straightforwardly harmful presence in the circuit.
Lia Rathburn retired from quizbowl (in pretty clear imitation of yours truly) which made choosing a #1 harder than it should have been.
Max Gedajlovic's main contribution to the circuit this year was convincing us to make him poll eligible and his exclusive chesszooms have created a kind of self-perpetuating elite within CanQB who exercise considerable influence over the direction of the circuit and wield that power in a variety of harmful ways.
Waterloo A made the rest of us look bad at ICT.
Kais Jessa and Devan Greevy were very good teammates for 2+ years and it was inconsiderate of them to graduate before me. My predilection for negs and generally inconsistent knowledge base might not have made me a perfect teammate but they always were and when I was getting slapped around by Toronto A at C++ or by any number of people at ARCADIA it was hard not to miss that team. They should at the very least have considered osmosing the lit and afa canons over to me on their way out.
Tony Chen has volunteered to be Canada's punching bag for four years, but also owes me a grand, which he absolutely refuses to fork over.

[benchapman]

1. Sky Li (University of Toronto)
Toronto's number 1 American has had a great season, serving as the lead scorer on the winning team of every closed tournament they played. Of particular note is their Penn Bowl performance, where Toronto Winter Closed went 3-0 against the stacked Henry/Derek/Daniel/Kais open team (though they were helped by the 3/3 myth). Sky is strongest at fine arts, history, and belief, but really has good knowledge across the distribution and is also a very good teammate (low-neg, calm, and consistent).

2. Tony Chen (Western University)
Tony and Ian are the two broadest generalists in the circuit and probably the only two people who are a legitimate threat on literally every question. I put Tony above mainly because of how Western had a stronger Regionals performance than Toronto B, but Ian and Tony are very close in ability. Tony is also an awesome open teammate (NASAT, Eminent Victorians, CMST) and I'm looking forward to potentially playing with him next year if he joins the Evil Empire of Toronto Quizbowl. Gas mine shaft.

3. Ian Chow (University of Toronto)
Ian is an absurd generalist who can buzz on anything and can win games on his own. He was one tossup away on a PPG tiebreak from making ACF Winter's 4-team top bracket solo and put up over 17 PPB while doing so. As others have mentioned, he has a very broad but unusual knowledge base (Wisława Szymborska more famous than Wallace Stevens?) that means he can scale up effectively across a variety of categories. I think in particular Ian's science knowledge is very underrated; in physics/other science he is one of the circuit's strongest players. It's a real shame his flight to ICT got cancelled, because he would have put up a very strong performance there I'm sure.

101. Gareth Thorlakson (University of Toronto)
Toronto's number 2 American. It feels wrong putting Gareth here, and all these top spots are very close together unlike last year (thanks to the graduation/retirement of Mr. Atkins and Ms. Rathburn). Gareth I think has slightly less breadth than Tony, Ian, and Sky but his history knowledge is incredibly strong and might be the best 4/4 in the circuit. Why does he know and care about all these random Civil War battles? He's also a very fun teammate and I am excited to play with him again next year, even if he did produce the world's worst neg at CMST. Should show up to practice more (not that I've been great about that recently). Also incredibly friendly.

5. Kevin Fan (McGill University)
If he'd played more he probably would be ranked higher, but it's tough to rank him above Sky/Tony/Gareth/Ian when the only common tournaments they've played is SCT and Nationals. Definitely still one of the scariest players on the circuit and can pull insane history buzzes right out of thin air. Also I have no idea how we convinced him to play SCT at that Indian place after Regionals but am very glad he made the trip over.

6. Benjamin Chapman (University of Toronto)
I definitely think my generalism has improved this year (largely from writing CN/MRNA and reading the New Yorker) but it's still a bit behind the people around me on the poll. With the exception of the first round robin of Penn Bowl, I've mostly shaken my negging habit with the revolutionairy strategy of buzzing when I know the answer.

7. Cormac Beirne (McGill University)
Cormac played as well/better than Kevin did at Winter Closed and MRNA, but did slightly worse at SCT and Nationals. He's a very good fine arts player with some strong history-based generalism and also is a decent science player? (T2 science scorer at C++). He had a strong CMST playing with Erik and a very impressive buzz on a certain Belgian playwright. I put myself above because I think I was a bit more consistent this year, but can definitely see the argument to put Cormac above me.

8. Milan Fernandez (Niagara College)
As previous ballots have mentioned, soloing definitely isn't the ideal role for Milan, who functions better when he can play as a fine arts/literature/chemistry specialist. In spite of that, he still has very deep knowledge about a lot of things and can steal a game on the right pack (e.g. only losing by 5 to the winning Winter Closed team while playing solo). Also did very well at CMST. Doubtlessly will have a strong summer open season because he will actually have teammates.

9. Adrian Wong (McMaster University)
At the two tournaments Adrian and I both played (Winter and Regionals), we had roughly comparable performances (he had a bit more PPG on a slightly weaker Winter team and about the same as me at Regionals). I put myself above mainly because there's more data for me playing on harder sets, though I think Adrian would do well at harder tournaments. He had a good year anchoring McMaster at SCT and ICT to very strong finishes, and also played great at Eminent Victorians.

10. Wenying Wu (University of Toronto)
Wenying's less of a generalist than the people above, but she does know a lot more than just lit and has good pockets across the distribution that scale really well. Not to mention she had over twice as many powers on Penn Bowl and Winter Closed than MRNA?? I really enjoyed getting to play with her at Regionals/UG and she's someone who can add a lot to strong teams because of her depth.

11. Raymond Chen (University of Toronto)
Raymond is the quintessential specialist as a very strong literature/biochem player. I put Wenying above because she scores a bit more when they play together, but both of them have very good literature coverage and complement each other well despite totally overlapping. I also like playing with Raymond because he exactly complements my science knowledge (i.e. knowing bio and the areas of chemistry I am ignorant of).

12. Jay Misuk (Western University)
Jay at 12 feels low, but there isn't as much data on him this year and the data that does exist involves him playing next to Tony. Strong history/geography player with good general knowledge that can add a lot to a strong team (such as at Regionals).

13. Max Gedajlovic (University of British Columbia)
One negative of the circuit returning mostly to in-person events means that UBC can't participate as much. Despite this, Max had a strong year at the tournaments he did play and showed how he could anchor teams with competitive PPBs, no doubt in part due to his strong breadth of knowledge and great buzzing instincts.

14. Sam Hauer (University of British Columbia)
Sam being ranked lower this year is more a reflection on the circuit improving/him being less active rather than him being a worse player. He did well duoing SCT and C++ with Max and it was great to finally get to meet him in person when he played CMST (and did quite well; his team was very unlucky not to grab a win). Canada's #1 moiety player.

15. Liam Kusalik (University of Waterloo)
Liam's teammates have improved this year, meaning that he doesn't have to play as an anchor anymore and can mainly focus on defending his very strong specialty in science. While Waterloo don't have a clear top scorer (in fact, any given Waterloo team seems to feature 4 people scoring within 10 PPG of each other in a random order from tournament to tournament), I put him first because I think he's the most consistent and also rarely negs. He's very tall, as many have observed.

16. Mattias Ehatamm (University of Waterloo)
Mattias has gone from not playing quizbowl to becoming a strong lit player with good generalist knowledge within the span of a year. He also had a great ICT performance, both in the final and throughout the tournament. Definitely can neg a bit much at times, but seems to be improving on that front and no doubt will become a very strong player in the coming years. Loses marks for being from New Jersey.

17. Parth Jagtap (University of Toronto)
The fact that Parth is 17 on this poll speaks to the strength of the circuit this year, as he's had great performances this year. He showed he can both function as an anchor at lower difficulties (Winter, SCT, and ICT) but also add a lot to a more balanced team at 3-dots (such as at UG Champs) due to his great depth in areas of religion, myth, econ, math, film, and literature.

18. Michael Du (University of Waterloo)
Like Mattias, Michael has developed quickly into a great player/ICT champion despite a lack of previous trivia experience. He's strongest at history but will also get a lot of science when not playing with Liam. Can sometimes have a bit too much affinity for the neg, but that's something he'll definitely improve on with more experience. He also was the second biggest contributer to our CMST team's bonus conversion, despite being asleep for half of it. Fortune cookie omen master.

19. Andrew McCowan (Queen's University)
Unfortunately Andrew couldn't play as much this year, but was a strong humanities generalist at the tournaments he did play. It was a shame he couldn't make it to Regionals, but did show at the non-Canada online Winter Closed mirror that he can function as a generalist at 3-dots (and beat Nationals champions Georgia Tech no less).

20. Nicolas Edwards (McGill University)
Nick dealt with a lot of shadow when playing with Cormac this year, but showed at Winter/MRNA/SCT that he can anchor a team (not to mention him leading McGill to a convincing Fall victory). I put him below Andrew because he scored marginally less at the two tournaments they both played, but I think he's a similarly strong humanities generalist. With Cormac and Kevin graduating, Nick should take over as McGill's main anchor and I'm excited to see how they do in D2 next year. (I didn't consider this in the ranking, but Nick is also an excellent pop culture player which should serve him well on NAQT next year).

21. Caleb Ott (University of Waterloo)
I've been told Caleb is a very good Reach player, and he clearly did not have much trouble adjusting to quizbowl this year. I'll be honest in that I have no clue what his categories are, but putting up over 30 PPG at ARCADIA and finishing as 5th scorer at MRNA mean he clearly knows a lot of things.

22. Gaian Valdegamo (University of Waterloo)
Gaian is a key member of the Waterloo A team due to his strong fine arts knowledge, as well as random other stuff he knows. He also got an insane half-line against my team at ACF Winter (as part of a pretty resounding defeat of us). A fellow engineering student, which is cool (or not, I still haven't decided how I feel about engineering after 2 years).

23. Albert Li (University of Toronto)
Sadly, Albert's flight to ICT got cancelled, as he would have filled the 3-person team's main hole of anything related to America. He's a good history player who also improves a lot on NAQT and I hope to finally play with him on a team sometime next year.

24. David Snoddon (University of Toronto)
While David's definitely less of a generalist than the rest of the people around here, he's a strong lit specialist who also has good math/econ knowledge. (This didn't factor into my ranking, but he's also a great sports player). Him getting 20 PPG in the stacked Penn Bowl field shows the strength of his speciality considering how many other good lit players were in the field.

25. Gabrielle Clark (University of Ottawa)
Ottawa's club is back on the map this year in a big way and they had a strong Regionals finish led by Gabrielle and Connor. Gabrielle scored a bit more than Connor at Regionals, while the opposite was true for their MRNA team that took McGill A to the second game of a final. I opted to put Gabrielle on because Regionals is a harder tournament with a harder field, but they seem very close in ability and Connor would be 26th on my ballot.

Honourable Mentions:
Kane Nguyen finally got to play ICT and did well on the strong McMaster team. One of the highlights of the season was reading the McMaster A vs McMaster K match at MRNA.
Connor Haines, who has been a key player on the resurgent Ottawa team and has good history knowledge.
Yadu Kukenthiran, a strong history player who unfortunately dealt with a lot of shadow from Jay at Winter. He gets a lot of points for in my book for pulling an all-nighter in Singapore to play C++ and doing great while presumably struggling to stay awake (we were very close to losing the last playoff game against Western largely because of him).
Joey Sun, whom I had a lot of fun playing with at Winter and has improved a lot this year. He's a good history/music player and did well anchoring a less-experienced team at C++.
Martin Profant was less active this year but I got to play Penn Bowl and ARCADIA with him; as always, he contributed his deep biochem knowledge and it's great that he'll be back next year.
Micah Colman, James Ah Yong, and Jared He are more strong Waterloo players (where do they keep getting these people?) who just missed out and should form a very strong D2 core for next year.

[KStan25]

1. Tony Chen (Western)
Perhaps some arguments that he doesn't power enough. Perhaps some argument could be made that Western didn't win anything, but Tony was simply too good to put anywhere else. 10s win matches after all, so who cares if he's getting 5 fewer points than possible so long as he still denies the other team 10. Also gets huge credit for solo-ing at ICT. He could perhaps use some more clutch genes to avoid losing advantaged finals, and that defeat in a 1v1 to Ben will haunt him for life, but he's now joining Toronto so it's hard to see him not topping these rankings again next year. Either he unlocks a new level at the best club in the country (a la Kyle Walker's transfer from Spurs to Man City), or he reveals his plan of taking down Toronto from the inside. Either way, a performance worthy of number 1.
2. Kevin Fan (McGill)
I would have liked to have ranked Kevin first, but unfortunately he took too much time to really get going. He was doing important work, such as leading Porto and Joey Saputo's Bolognese mafia to glory, warding off the evil influences of Morgan-Stanley, compiling every stoppage time goal Swansea conceded to lose matches, and converting away from the Browns, but unfortunately I can only rank him on his Quizbowl exploits. Easily McGill's best player when he actually turned out for McGill, Kevin fills a bunch of niches and scales so well to higher difficulties. Not even the CIA knows as much about Cold War era CIA operations in Latin America, and some African Studies professors don't know as much about African dictators. What separates Kevin from those just below him is the help he gave me for two separate computer science classes that I mistakenly registered for. What keeps him below Tony is that I went 10 to -5 up on his team once, whereas I never played Tony in QB and got overrun by him at Consensus.
3. Ian Chow (Toronto)
The first time I met Ian, he solo-ed my team by over 100 points at ACF Winter. It's hard to not rank him way up there when he solo-ed his way to an 8-2 record. He also mercilessly cut and chopped down my questions for Canada Novice, but on reflection he was correct to do so because asking kids fresh off the boat to name some obscure curiosity of mine is rather unfair. Ian scales up really well, and was a top two Toronto player at ACF Regs, ACF Nats, and SCT, a level of consistency tough for anyone else to match. What puts Ian just below the other two may not be entirely his fault. As a generalist on very strong teams, it's simply harder to rack up as many points as equal ability players on weaker teams. Maybe Ian should seek a new challenge, and lead McGill to glory. If Johan Cruyff could do it at Feyenoord...
4. Milan Fernandez (Niagara)
Single-handedly running his university's trivia club, while Milan may not have won much at Niagara, the insistence on solo-ing everything puts him up many levels in my estimation. It can be some long and hard days to play tough tournaments by yourself, but Milan kept going and put on some admirable performances. A lot of negs, necessitated by his solo-ing, but it also enabled some really great early buzzes. Hopefully he keeps going, maybe he can convert some other actors to the Quizbowl stage, but the points will keep flowing regardless.
5. Cormac Beirne (McGill)
Look, not even I can spin this in a way that makes Cormac's exploits sound better than what the Irish rugby team has been up to this season. Respectable showings at D1 SCT and Nats are fine and all, but it's hardly a series victory in New Zealand or a Grand Slam. Still, in his final year before going on a sabbatical from university Quizbowl, Cormac was excellent. Being McGill’s best player at every tournament he played but two, two of the three tournaments than a certain Fan showed up to, is a noteworthy achievement, and An t-Uachtarán’s leadership of the club was steady. He may not be as talented as Josh van der Flier, he may not have marshalled the troops as well as Andy Farrell, but I think he’s done better than all but 4 other people in Canada. Cormac is right up there with Josh Little and Evan Ferguson as Ireland's premier young non-rugby athletes, and I'm sure a national team callup won't be too far away. His only real weakness, one that he definitely needs to work on before his return to university Quizbowl at an unspecified date, is his midnight driving in the Montreal snow.
6. Sky Li (Toronto)
A great player, arguably the most consistent player up to this point in the list. They just lack the highs that the others above them got, and that just about ekes them out of the top 5 for me.
7. Gareth Thorlaksen (Toronto)
The only interactions I think I’ve had with Gareth was at Consensus and at the Indian restaurant after ACF Regs, but he was a super fun guy to be around. Also has really good numbers, and I definitely believe anyone that says he would have changed a lot had he been able to travel for ICT. A great player that’s done really well at higher dot tournaments, the only thing keeping him this low for me is the lack of personal interactions. You know what to do next year Gareth.
8. Max Gedajlovic (UBC)
Once again, someone I don’t think I’ve ever met. Most of my interactions with Max have been reading his Reach packets at practice. Once again though, solid numbers at all levels, and I’m fortunate I’ve never had to play him because of that big empty space between us. Seriously, Kamal Miller travelled a shorter distance for his transfer to Inter Miami than he did when Montreal travelled to Vancouver to get trashed 5-0 on April 1st. The numbers tell me that Max is a fantastic player, the grapevine tells me that he has kept UBC going during what was expected to be a difficult time after Lia's retirement. If Mark Taylor can be highly rated for masterfully handling Australia's transition post-Allan Border, so can Max Gedajlovic.
9. Ben Chapman (Toronto)
Ben is pretty crazy for a second year, eh? Top scorer at SCT D1, a solo run at ICT D1 where he beat the guy I placed first, and a great showing at ACF Regs, as well as a lot of really good showings in other tournaments this year that I can't be bothered to list out. Ben will certainly win a player poll very soon, but I just don't think his time is now. Being the best science player on the circuit helps a lot for PPG, and also helps to contribute a ridiculous amount to Canada Novice, but it makes a lot of his buzzes seem a little less impressive than what those above him are capable of. Still, a phenomenal player that will continue to get better and absorb more things by osmosis. American involvement in Canadian Quizbowl certainly isn't going away any time soon.
10. Adrian Wong (McMaster)
For a long time, CanQB’s best story of the season seemed to be going Mac’s way. The dream team had assembled, they won at SCT with some truly incredible performances, and a 6th placed finish at ICT was outstanding. In any other year, they’d have taken up all the headlines. Adrian was undoubtedly the star of Mac’s year. While his performances at uploading MacVanity stats leave a little to be desired, there is no denying his Quizbowl prowess. The only thing keeping Adrian this low is the lack of data points from higher dot tournaments, which everyone else above him has, but I have no doubt that he’d do very well at harder tournaments if he turned out for them more. I would also like to remind Adrian of McGill’s great reputation as a medical school, and we have the Akhil Garg to prove it.
11. Jay Misuk (Western)
I didn't get to interact with Jay much outside of playtesting some of his reach packets at MacVanity, but Jay is a great guy that's only held back by not playing too much. Not many people could do what he did alongside Tony, and I think it's disappointing he wasn't allowed to play at Winter. Still, a great player and a great guy, very much feared even with the "rust".
12. Kane Nguyen (McMaster)
It seems I've ranked Kane higher than everyone else on here has. Kane's stats may not be the best, but he is the Quizbowl player in my mind. He knows what he knows, doesn't know what he doesn't, and always has a great time. Perhaps he doesn't scale up as well as some others, maybe he negs a bit too much, but I still can't rank him any lower. I was also on the receiving end of perhaps the most monstrous performance I've ever witnessed, an absurd 5/1/1 against us as Mac racked up 550, including 3 powers in a row and two first lines. Also contributed immensely to their ridiculous 23.33 PPB in that game. When Kane is hot, he is hot. His lows may be worse than Chelsea's (ok, maybe that's too far), but when he's on, he is the most exciting player on the circuit. I don’t know if we’ve seen the last of Kane and his plant bio+college sports packets at MacVanity, but if this is the end he can surely be satisfied with the year he’s finished on.
13. Raymond Chen (Toronto)
Raymond gets bonus points from me for playing on a team of only Raymonds, doing what we at McGill did not have the courage to do and field a team of only Maxes or Jacobs. He does lose points for not calling that team Toronto R though. A great player, as expected, while also working in a lab doing things. It's a shame that the future of humanity will be ruined next year because of all the tournaments McGill will host, with the long drives/train rides keeping Raymond away from humanity saving work.
14. Wenying Wu (Toronto)
I don't think I've ever met Wenying, but she fits in nicely with this Toronto cluster and her stats are very good. 14th it is.
15. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo)
And so begins the Waterloo sweep. They're all a little unlucky to be so far down, but there's no shame in being a team far greater than the sum of its parts. The team stayed at my apartment for ACF Regs, and I think the experience of sharing a cramped room where a queen sized mattress took up a third of the floor space really brought the team together. The way they mercilessly slaughtered my team by 300 points in SCT's 3rd place playoff a week later showed the kind of ruthlessness that champion teams are made of. The signs were very clearly there early on. On to the players, and we start with Mattias. He got better at every tournament he played, the notebook strats clearly paying dividends, and was the best player on a Waterloo team that had the best underlying stats at SCT despite missing Liam. There's not much else I can add to the insane run at ICT, and basically the perfect performance in the final. Hope to see him even better next year.
16. Sam Hauer (UBC)
Sam also falls victim to the vast emptiness between Toronto and Vancouver (as someone who's lived in Edmonton I am allowed to say this). The stats are good, and that gives him some solid footing to be up here.
17. Parth Jagtap (Toronto)
Another fantastic player that's improved rapidly over the years, it was nice to get to see Parth a few times this year after only being able to talk about cricket and Manchester United's hilarity online these past couple years. Great at a lot of the usual QB stuff, he is also really good at football questions, although I never got to see it this year. I would not have attempted my only good buzz of the season ("Equa-no, regular Guinea") if Parth was not in the room, because I was sure he would get it then if I didn't. It is unlucky how his team got affected by the weather around ICT, but he still put on a performance to be proud of, and I'm looking forward to see how he takes on the higher difficulties next year.
18. Andrew McCowan (Queens)
I've only played Andrew once, but it was a bit of a slaughter. Consistently one of the most solid players on the circuit, he may not have played as much this year but his presence was still felt throughout the year. The free agency talk was fun, but with him committing to Queens on another long term deal (much like Harry Kane will at Spurs this summer I am sure), it's back to business. Hopefully the circuit as a whole continues the great strides it made this year at accessibility for the non-GTA teams, and I am able to compete against Andrew more.
19. Michael Du (Waterloo)
Much like Mattias, a great player that got better every tournament, culminating in keeping a trophy away from the Americans still in America. A fantastic player with a nice sleeping bag setup for long away trips, I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty more to come from Michael in the future. Fortunately he can't terrorize my teams anymore, because he has been banned from tournaments of my skill level.
20. Nick Edwards (McGill)
The Genie champ has kept moving up. The most unkind thing I can about Nick is that he's an Arsenal fan, but he hasn't been insufferable this year which makes it harder to poke fun at him for Arsenal's late season collapse. A fantastic player at all levels (although better at NAQT), it will be really interesting to see how he continues to improve next year. He'll hopefully have scaled up to the higher difficulties some more, filling the void left by the old people brigade of Cormac and Kevin, and will definitely be leading the line for McGill's return to ICT.
21. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo)
The premier scientist on that champion team, Liam was solid all year in a very good niche. Waterloo A might very well have won at SCT if Liam had been available, and he added that extra edge to the side to take the crown in Chicago.
22. Caleb Ott (Waterloo)
A sneakily very good player with excellent numbers. It didn't come off at SCT, but he was excellent everywhere else. Will be very dangerous next year with a full year of QB experience under the belt.
23. Albert Li (Toronto)
A great player that pairs well with Parth, it's unfortunate that we weren't able to see that team's full potential without Albert. Still, I am sure we have not seen the best of them yet, with much more still to come at the higher levels.
24. Max Chemtov (McGill)
A fantastic guy to play with, both at my scrub levels and at higher levels like we saw at mRNA, Winter, and Nats. Very good at making sense of the incomprehensible math jargon, and his strengths scale up very well. Also the best in the business for the Reach/Consensus word puzzle questions, which I thought was random until I discovered his alter ego. Unfortunate that this will probably be his only year on the circuit, but he left his mark. Also earns bonus points for lending me his car and presence for my driving test, and that just about pushes him above the other competitors at the fringes of the top 25.
25. Elena Bai (McGill)
One of those weird people that played QB in high school (also known as an American). Adamant that she's no good at Quizbowl, and she is very wrong. A much better ACF player than an NAQT one, she still has a wide array of dependable strengths for 1-2 dot level. My first instincts were to place her in the top 20, that’s how great of a teammate she is to play with, and I was surprised that her numbers weren’t as high as I thought they were. As a result she only just makes the cut, but I’m certain she will make many more ballots next year. Hopefully she plays more high level tournaments (such as ICT D2, after being an integral part of the McGill team that wins SCT D2 and qualifies) and proves the doubters (herself) wrong. Bonus points for donating a stuffed panda to my cousin's monstrous stuffed animal collection.

Honourable mentions:

McGill: Jacob Garofolo was hanging with the best of them at the three tournaments he played, but then he became occupied with other endeavors. We will continue to try to get him to make his return, and I hope the circuit will suffer his wrath many times next year. Jacob van Oorschot spent a lot of time doing pretty decently at higher level tournaments. It hurt his stats, but he still held his own as a solid support player, and should be well equipped (perhaps with a diet of carding) to dominate the sciences in a perfect compliment to Nick and Elena and lead McGill back to ICT. Was also sorely missed on the dodgeball field. Henry Olsen and Francis Dinh are solid players that should hopefully get more time to play next year. Liz van Oorschot took a while to join the circuit but once we introduced her the gateway drug of Consensus, she was one of the most active members of the club and dominated Canada Novice. Finally, Devito Stevanus was perhaps the most active member of the club and embraced Quizbowl with ravenous enthusiasm. A very solid player with unusual strengths that'll only get better as he irons down the canon, his energy and excitement lift everyone around him.

The capital: Couldn't find room for Ottawa people still at Ottawa, so here they all are. Gabrielle Clark and Connor Haines from Ottawa are very good, and surprised me a little because I had forgotten that Ottawa existed during the COVID years. Carleton sent out some solid teams, with Kevin Anderson and Andrew Wilson chief among their top players. And lastly, a word for James Wang and the tireless work he's done at reviving the Ottawa Trivia Club. I am so glad we can travel short-ish distances to tournaments. We even reached home before 8pm one time!

GTA: Micah Colman, Jared He, and James Ah Yong are all great players that just missed out. Jared was incredible in the one game I played against him at SCT, where we won off the final question. Definitely the best player of the game, and together with Caleb they will form a formidable side for McGill’s multiple top division teams to face at SCT. It also feels wrong to leave off Gaian Valdegamo, especially as a fellow engineer, but I hope he knows that we're all proud of what he and Waterloo A accomplished. Adil Haider, Angus Patterson, and Isaac Thangaraj also impressed when given the chance.

The wilderness: I don’t know if I’ve ever met Yadu Kukenthiran, and I was not there to witness his Singapore flavoured C++ performances, but the manner in which everyone else has talked about him makes me feel obligated to mention him here. I also want to echo Andrew's praise of UBC and Alberta as clubs generally, for keeping themselves going despite being so isolated from the rest of the community. Alberta also follows me on Instagram, and one of the people there is a Mario Kart Double Dash speedrunner, so that is very cool.

[abovethetreetops]

Rookie poll:

1. Mattias Ehatamm, Waterloo (Miko, TH13)
2. Michael Du, Waterloo (Futo, TH13)
3. Caleb Ott, Waterloo (Onozuka Komachi, TH9)
4. Micah Colman, Waterloo (Konpaku Youmu, TH7)
I've already said words about the ICT squad but Waterloo's player depth is astounding to see. Micah's work at Fall was stunning and Caleb put up very good work at Arcadia. I'm expecting great things from them all.

5. Isaac Thangaraj, Toronto (Fujiwara no Mokou, TH8)
My first memory of Isaac was reading for him at Lisgar and he cracked an Oversimplified joke. Anyways, great guy and a great player to top it off too. Capable of back-boning a solid Toronto team in future years.

6. Jacob Garofalo, McGill (Junko, TH15)
Ran away with Carleton Novice and was a treat to see in action. Did great at Winter and is a player with a lot of scale-up potential in future years.

7. Max Chemtov, McGill (Kawashiro Nitori, TH10)
Playing Nats in your first year is a daunting feat, yet Max performed great. Difficult to outmatch at his specialties and a solid player under pressure.

8. Daniel Vorotynstev, Ottawa (Rin Kaenbyou, TH11)
Played just as much as I did, which is not a whole lot, but Daniel is a solid player with good all-round humanities coverage that scales well. Saved my ass too many times to count at mRNA.

9. Kevin Anderson, Carleton (Medicine Melancholy, TH9)
Another player who dominated Novice. Solid with a lot of specialized science knowledge.

10/ Liz van Oorschot, McGill (Elly, TH3)
Liz was blindingly fast on the buzzer at CanNovice. Extensive Reach play served her well and I look forward to seeing her perform going forward.

An entirely non-comprehensive list of honourable mentions goes out to so many people I had the joy of seeing this year. Devito Stevanus, Maude-Sophie Lockman, Max Christie, Sarah Khan, Cendikiawan Suryaatmadja, Adil Haider and so many more. Everyone should play more quizbowl.

Community Ballot
In no particular order, I have so many people I'd like to recognize.

Firstly a huge shout-out to both Joe (congrats on the Carper!) and Henry for being so supportive in helping Ottawa and Carleton get back into the circuit as a whole. From staffing to providing advice throughout the year, they played a critical role in our rebuild.

In addition I need to thank so many others from Ottawa (the place). Everything I've done was possible only with the help of (alphabetically) Connor, Daniel, Emerald, Gabby, Ishan, Joseph, and Maude-Sophie, my fellow club execs. Over at Carleton, Anson, Ben, Kevin, Saiyara, Stefan also deserve a mention for the hard work they put in making mRNA happen. Thanks also to everyone from Ottawa and beyond who showed up to staff Fall and the other tournaments in town.

Other people in the community that I'd like to thank include the entire CanNovice writing team. Special shout-outs to all the editors. From Toronto, Sky Li, Raymond Chen and Ben Chapman are all great folk who did a lot this year. Over at McGill Nadia does a lot of work on the back-end and is a pretty great person.

A final round of names who deserve recognition include Cormac, Kevin Fan, Gareth, Adrian and Andrew McCowan. A sincere apology if I've missed anyone.

Finally, a personal thank you to Ian Chow for walking clueless me through the chaos of TDing Fall and for all his help this year, both to me and the wider circuit.

[KStan25]

Rookie Poll:

1. Matthias Ehatamm (Waterloo)
2. Michael Du (Waterloo)
3. Caleb Ott (Waterloo)
4. Max Chemtov (McGill)
Already mentioned these four in the main poll. Great players, and it's impossible to rank those top two anywhere but first and second for that historic run. Caleb consistently had great numbers and tore up NAQT Novice. Max had more trophies than losses in his Quizbowl career until his 6th game at Winter (ACF Fall was his first tournament), was great at SCT D2, and did respectably at Nats as the only Canadian rookie there. Unlucky to not be able to play in the two Novice tournaments to boost his stats, but he's done enough.

5. Jacob Garofolo (McGill)
Jacob G also had more trophies than losses until ACF Winter (winning his first two tournaments undefeated, and taking until 3 games at Winter to lose that many games). A ridiculous 97 PPG at NAQT novice, and nearly matched the incredible Nick at both Fall and Winter. Can absolutely become a monster, but he stopped playing after this and only came to one more practice for the rest of the year. Hopefully we can pull him back in, but the theatre stage is very important.

6. Micah Coleman (Waterloo)
Also an incredible Reach convert that will definitely get better. Going to form part of that powerful core as Waterloo begin their defense of the ICT D2 title.

7. Adil Haider (McMaster)
A very impressive player that should hopefully play more next year. Had a very respectable ACF Regs, the only thing holding him back is the lack of games.

8. Kevin Anderson (Carleton)
Also insane at Novice, and some other solid performances including an impressive showing at mRNA. Definitely one to look out for as Carleton continue their way up.

9. Maude-Sophie Lookman (Ottawa)
Proving that Quizbowl should not only recruit from Reach, but also from Genie. Her one weakness is Quizbowl's Americanness not accepting French answers, but I'm sure she'll get there.

10. Liz van Oorschot (McGill)
Her brother tried recruiting her for a bit, but she didn't turn out for the club until the gateway drug of Consensus was dangled in front of her. After that though, she became an integral part of the club and had a monstrous performance at Canada Novice, and a decent showing at mRNA.

HMs: Henry Olsen, Devito, Max Gross, James Wang, Isaac Thangaraj, and many others I have overlooked. Everyone who turns out is a champion

Community Poll:

Quite tough to do as I don't know the inner workings of any club but my own (and not even my own that well). For example, I had never heard of Miriam Tam until reading other entries in this forum, but she is a critical member of the third best club in the country.

Joe Su is a hero for reading at basically every event, and also major props to him and the entire Consensus crew for starting Consensus. Both events and the practice packets were a lot of fun and I hope it gets expanded and becomes an integral part of the circuit going forward. All we need is for Cormac to request the full packets to be sent to our email...

Henry Atkins also staffed at most major events, co-wrote his own tournament with a fun theme, and was just a constant presence around the circuit. Graduation can't keep him away, and hopefully the government won't either.

Over at McGill, Nadia Dakdouki kept the club running most of the time, somehow got ACF Regs to happen despite the complete inertia of the people in charge of giving us the rooms for the weekend. The club's organization for travel took a bit of a nosedive when she moved on to bigger and better things (as weird as it sounds, there are things more important than Quizbowl) in the second half of the year. Russell Valerio told the bosses at Morgan-Stanley to get bent and kept driving us to tournaments in distant locales despite having a full time, Monday to Friday job. The main driver, occasional Vanerio contributor, sometimes travelling to the airport to get us our cars, constant presence at practice and club events, frequent staffer, watched Thomas the Tank Engine with my cousins, and he even served as a sacrifice for the SCT D1 team. It is an absolutely unreasonable level of involvement for someone that has an actual, real life, job. He is probably not going to be as around the club much next year as he finally graduates, but he’s already done so much for the club over his long degree, and he very deservedly gets to ride off into the sunset alongside Roy Hodgson (and like Roy, maybe he’ll be back when we’re in trouble, or maybe he’ll lead one of our neighboring clubs to relegation). Cormac Beirne kept the masses informed about the circuit, and held onto the buzzers while mooching off campus wifi. Things will get quite a bit harder without A t-Uachtaráin around next year. I also want to give shoutouts to Francis Dinh for handling all the emails and doing some truly incredible photoshop work, Laurel Johansson and Devito Stevanus for saving me $100 by rushing to make the dodgeball game after ACRONYM to ensure we didn’t default, and just generally being the most excited and involved members of the club at practice, and Jacob van Oorschot for lending us his apartment, TV, and Melee skills for that incredible Smash-Chess event we had.

Finally, once again, a shoutout to James Wang and everyone at Ottawa and Carleton for revitalizing the Quizbowl scene in the capital. It is so nice to not have to drive 6+ hours to go to tournaments. I reached home before 8pm after the Consensus tournament in Ottawa!!! What a world, and I hope we get more Ottawa events next year.

[PogueChamp]

I'd like to apologize in advance for any excessively hot takes. I wasn't planning to participate in the poll, but on a whim I decided to whip up a submission in a couple hours, so without any further ado:

1. Ian Chow - Toronto
An amazing generalist that just barely beats out my number 2 pick for the number 1 spot thanks to his ridiculously broad knowledge base. His solo performance at Winter and the fear it inspired in me and my club will stay with me for quite some time.
2. Sky Li - Toronto
I'm convinced they've got actual ice in their veins after playing them at Regionals; a cool, calm, and collected master of their specialties. Not much more to say about them that hasn't been said a dozen times over, and their dominance at the tournaments they've played this year says more than I could hope to anyways. I'd definitely be more scared of them than I am of Ian if I didn't know they were into Melee.
3. Tony Chen - Western
I haven't had the chance to play Tony yet, I'm hoping to rectify that this summer and finally catch a glimpse of the beast from Western. Regardless, his stats speak for themselves, definitely the best of the generalists. Might've been ranked higher if he hadn't lost the ICT 1v1 to Bengsci.
4. Wenying Wu - Toronto
Without a doubt the literature player I aspire to be, a well deserved spot in the top 5 for the Canadian with the most first buzzes at ACF Nats and a great showing at Regionals to boot.
5. Gareth Thorlakson - Toronto
Closing out my unintentionally UofT-centric top 5 is the humanities player I aspire to be. By far the most blue hoodie wearingest American on this ballot, Grizzle really made an impression at Regionals where I got to witness him in action for the first time, dreading the next time I have to play him.
6. Kevin Fan - McGill
Thankfully haven't had to play him much, scary good player with the stats to back it up at MRNA II and Nats, hope I get to keep not playing this legend.
7. Ben Chapman - Toronto
I have a New Yorker tote bag, Ben reads the New Yorker. I'm 20, Ben's 20. I'm red-green colourblind, Ben's favourite colour is grey. Unfortunately that's where our similarities end, because while I'm a mediocre quizbowler at best, Ben's a brilliant one at worst. Known for his astounding science knowledge, he's expanded his base to include some literature and humanities thanks to the aforementioned publication. He even beat Tony "the Beast" Chen in a one on one match at ICT. ;bengsci;
8. Cormac Beirne - McGill
Not all that far from Kevin Fan in skill and ability to induce fear. Definitely a man you don't meet every day.
9. Milan Fernandez - Niagara
One of several generalists in the circuit, while he may not be the best at it, he's absolutely nothing to sneeze at. A bonafide one man army.
10. Mattias Ehatamm - Waterloo
A rookie in the top 10?? I think his brilliant ICT performance alone warrants the placement, but he also lead fierce Waterloo teams at Regionals, SCT, and more. He's bound to improve his game and become an even more dominant player in the circuit next year. Watch out.
11. Adrian Wong - McMaster
Broke 100 PPG at SCT, and put up solid performances elsewhere. Scary good, hope to play him more in the future, especially on hard sets.
12. Raymond Chen - Toronto
Has the misfortune of being a slightly overshadowed by the other members of Toronto's cast of superstar quizbowlers. Still, his skill is undeniable.
13. Max Gedajlovic - UBC
Haven't had the pleasure to meet him thanks to the vast chasm separating UBC from the rest of the circuit, but Max's stats tell me all I need to know to confidently place him at the end of the first half of my ballot.
14. Sam Hauer - UBC
To start off the second half is Sam, also from UBC, who I also haven't met yet. With great showings at C++, CMST, and more, Sam's yet another cracked player from the other side of the country that I hope to play someday.
15. Liam Kusalik - Waterloo
Knows his science damn well. Also tall.
16. Michael Du - Waterloo
Don't sleep on Michael Du, the sleepiest of the ICT champs! He might not have been their highest scorer but he managed to contribute to their championship run on the buzzer, and off the buzzer by way of prophetic cookie. All of that as a mere rookie, he's sure to expand his game and become even more fearsome next season.
17. Parth Jagtap - Toronto
Great SCT stats, hope to play him soon.
18. Andrew McCowan - Queen's
Haven't seen much of Andrew, but what I have seen is more than enough to place him in the top 20, a great quizbowler, bound to show up on ballots in future years.
19. David Snoddon - Toronto
David's a great player, solid performances at D1 SCT and Winter. Really unfortunate that we couldn't see him play at ICT and had to settle for his live-blogging it instead.
20. Gaian Valdegamo - Waterloo
One of the Waterloo D2 ICT champs, a great quizbowler that's proven to be a solid fine arts player. Can't wait to see what he does next year.
21. Connor Haines - Ottawa
Just barely beating Gabby for the title of best uOttawa player, Connor has carried me to many wins this year with his history and niche literature prowess, combined with good buzzer speed and natural synergy with Gabby, he is quite impeccable and more than deserving of a spot on the ballot.
22. Gabrielle Clark - Ottawa
I remember playing my very first ever Collegiate quizbowl tournament, ACF Fall 2020 over Discord, with Gabby as a tiny team of two. We didn't do too great, but it was an experience I'm not going to forget any time soon, nor will I forget how she helped me bumble my way through learning the ropes of quizbowl as I negged far too many of her tossups. While I still have a long way to go in improving at quizbowl, she's dominated harder tournaments since with commanding performances at ACF Regionals, and MRNA II. An amazing history player, she complements Connor's knowledge base quite well to form a dominant duo.
23. Kane Nguyen - McMaster
The circuit's resident college sports guru compliments Adrian quite well as a teammate. He might neg a bit more than some others, but his drive and determination to win are a force to be reckoned with and his showing at SCT is proof enough.
24. Albert Li - Toronto
Stunning display at ACF Fall, where he was the top scorer, Albert Li is sure to be a menace at future tournaments, especially when paired with Parth.
25. James Ah Yong - Waterloo
Closing out my ballot is my former Reach teammate (and highschool classmate). Easily the most blue hoodie wearingest Canadian on this ballot, he really showed up for Waterloo at SCT, and almost definitely will again at more tournaments in the future.

I'd like to shout out everyone at the University of Ottawa that's helped make the club what it is today. I remember all too well joining in Fall 2020, and sitting in discord calls for practice with anywhere from 2 to 10 other people, thankfully that's behind us and a colourful cast of rookies are to thank for that, and I hope the club continues to grow and prosper next year — even if I end up transferring and having to watch it from a bit of a distance. My time at this club has been unforgettable and you're all to thank for it.

That being said, our club being all the way in the east of Ontario couldn't have grown to the extent that it has without the help we got from the rest of the circuit in our resuscitation efforts, so I'd also like to shout out everyone from all the various schools that have helped us with that. From bringing buzzers and staff to our tournaments, to co-TDing and doing CatStats at Fall, to answering my dumb questions on the discord, big or small your help has been invaluable. You've helped us quite a lot to be able to enjoy the epic highs and lows of collegiate quizbowl alongside you all, thank you.

Thank you for reading my ridiculous blurbs, and happy quizbowling to all.

[skewit]

I had a vague philosophy of imagining a “contending” team at approximately three dots whatever that means and considering who would be most valuable in that setting or something like that. Mostly just means deep coverage/specialists good. Also I stopped looking at stats at some point my eyes hurt please don’t forgive me. Also also I’ve assigned everyone a playable character from Fire Emblem 7: The Blazing Blade. Please do not ask me to elaborate on your assigned character; rest assured that I thought the vibes were right.

1. Sky Li (Toronto; Lyn)
Turns out if you live with someone who spends his free time telling you to learn clues you learn a few clues. It’s also really seeming like quizbowl writers just happen to listen to the same exact podcasts I do, which truly does help with those buzzes.

2. Tony Chen (Western; Serra)
Along with his obvious generalisty things, Tony’s also impressively scaled up his specialities of lit/bio to push into the conversation for top player in both categories this year. That said, speaking officially as President of the University of Toronto’s Academic Trivia Club, Tony is only allowed in the club if he steals the spider buzzers from Western. Maybe if he’d brought them to Winter he’d be #1.

3. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto; Hector)
Generalisty blah blah one of the most fun people to play with etc etc but more importantly actually vaguely cares about Civil War generals for some reason (apparently Gareth had the most amhist points / game of anyone at Nats which is extremely funny). Probably the strongest lockdown on 4/4 in the circuit and will beat you to literally any buzzer race. Gets more points for carrying me at Eminent Victorians. Could be #1 if he stopped negging Econ (he only negged it once at Nats !! That’s progress !!!!!!). Also apparently Canadian law is now quizbowl canon so Gareth can only go up from here.

4. Ian Chow (Toronto; Guy)
geny. Ian manages to have the widest category-threat-range of anyone in the circuit and is obviously great at his specialities in history/geo/ce/other/physics. It’s super fun playing with Ian because semifrequently he’ll just pull a 30 out of nowhere and mention that he learned about it in high school or something; I’ll deeply miss playing with him next year if just for that. Also slaughters anything that has to do with like Named Hobbies That People Do. Impressively managed to traumatize the entire Ottawa club in one day. Would probably be #1 if he managed to traumatize a few more clubs along the way.

5. Benjamin Chapman (Toronto; Kent)
GENERALISTTTTTTTTTTTTT. Ben maintained his utter stranglehold on (non-bio, though he’s not too shabby at bio) science and also somehow casually became the best philosophy player in the circuit over the course of a year, which showed at his dominant CMST. He’s also managed to top score a couple of very good Toronto teams (see Penn Bowl, Winter, ARCADIA). Has parsed every score clue I’ve seen him play over the last year which is dumb and he should stop doing that, especially against me. Gets a boost for eviscerating Tony’s soul at ICT. Would be #1 if he stopped thumbs-downing everything remotely positive ever said about him (including this).

6. Kevin Fan (McGill; Jaffar)
Gen. Shows up to Nats; drops 30 ppg; refuses to elaborate; leaves. Would be #1 if he actually played quizbowl.

7. Cormac Beirne (McGill; Raven)
Super strong VFA/beliefs specialist base with extremely good coverage in literature/history too; some would say that his category coverage is pretty comprehensive. Apparently knows what ““voltage”” is too which automatically means he knows more about science than like at least half of this circuit. Would be #1 if he managed to drag Kevin out to more tournaments (imo next time try more elaborate torture, like making him playtest my CN questions).

8. Milan Fernandez (Niagara; Louise)
A bit weaker generalism than some of the others around here but has absurdly strong specialities in VFA/Lit/film/etc and deep pockets in other categories (particularly Latin American history) to make up for it (see CMST for what Milan can do with non-empty chairs as teammates). Still absolutely terrifying to play against, even as a solo team (one bonus part away from beating Skraying at Winter Closed!!!). Would probably be #1 if he spent just a little more time in the Morrisburg sauna.

9. Adrian Wong (McMaster; Fiorina)
Truly someone that has knowledge in a broad range of categories. Too bad I’m forgetting the word for that right now. Destroyed a lot of the lower-difficulty tournaments this year (Winter, SCT, ICT) and can definitely still hold his own at higher difficulties (e.g. Regionals, stomping on EV). Just a very fun person to play against in general. Would be #1 if he managed to get that one MUSC student volunteer to play ICT.

10. Wenying Wu (Toronto; Wil)
top10playerwenyingwu definitely has the deepest lit speciality in the circuit (59.6% avg lit buzzpoint at Nats!!!) and also is a fellow devotee of Andrew “ReligionForBreakfast” Mark Henry giving her a solid foundation in beliefs as well. Can’t stop talking about “critical theory” or whatever it is that keeps getting her thought buzzes. As evidenced by MRNA, still vaguely remembers what buzzing on other categories is. Did you know she went 10/7/0 at Penn Bowl?

11. Raymond Chen (Toronto; Pent)
I’ve continued to play basically every closed tournament with Raymond over the last year, which I think makes me slightly higher on him than most other people. Extremely ideally only listens to 6 tossups a game. Raymond’s another one of the people constantly in contention for best lit player in the circuit and has probably the most breadth within lit of any of the lit players. Would also almost assuredly be the best bio player in the circuit by a wide if he didn’t keep negging it. Also unironically a bonus player to the point where I feel comfortable expecting him to 20 Nats-level lit bonuses regularly, which is absurd. Should stop telling me to learn clues.

12. Sam Hauer (UBC; Lucius)
Along with being the most has-his-shit-together quizbowler in existence, Sam Hauer do be knowing those clues. Had great performances at basically every tournament he played this year, despite being shadowed by the ghost of Lia Rathburn at Winter Closed. Still has great accents.

13. Max Gedajlovic (UBC; Eliwood)
I’ve only barely seen Max play this year, but based off his results at the tournaments he’s attended, he’s still got that good ol generalism and good depth in lit. Seems to live with a lot of idiots in his garage, which is admirable in of itself.

14. Jay Misuk (Western; Marcus)
As others have mentioned, there haven’t really been that many chances to see what Jay can do, though he still seems to have his broad generalism ability and deep pockets of humanities. It was also very funny watching him and Tony fight over vulches at SCT and Winter.

15. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo; Nino)
It’s really a testament both to the depth of the circuit this year and how impressive his improvement has been that a) I’m putting Mattias at 15th and b) I’m surprised that he’s only at 15th. A meteoric rise over the course of the year has turned Mattias into yet another contender for the best lit player in the country who also has a very good amount of coverage across other categories (5/0/0 doesn’t happen just from literature [unless it does in which case ignore this parenthetical]!). Still has some notable gaps in his knowledge (as should be expected of someone with only ~1 year of experience!!), but what he knows, he’ll typically end up first lining. Really excited to see how he improves over the next year as well. Also a t h e o r e t i c a l computer science enjoyer which we absolutely love to see.

16. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo; Rath)
Liam hasn’t had to lead his teams as hard this year because of the emergence of Mati / Michael but it’s still extremely impressive how good he is at basically every category, most obviously science. Was also a lot of fun to play with at NASAT.

17. Michael Du (Waterloo; Hawkeye)
Another Waterloo wunderkind who basically guaranteed will drop 1-2 first lines on you a pack. Seems to have mostly curbed his negging problem, which has turned him into a history powerhouse with the ability to pick up buzzes in random other pockets he has. Impressively managed to be the least chaotic member of his CMST team.

18. Parth Jagtap (Toronto; Rebecca)
Parth spearheaded Toronto’s D2 ICT team this year, putting up great performances across the board. He’s really developed his extreme specialities of film/econ/myth into powerhouse categories and continued to shore up his impressive lit foundation. Had a bit of a negging problem that (along with the rest of the ICT team) he managed to clean up by the end of the year, leading to strong contributions at the UG championship as well as leading the shorthanded Toronto ICT team to within a tossup of top bracket.

19. Gaian Valdegamo (Waterloo; Ninian)
Gaian rounds out the Waterloo (with a brief Parth interruption) ICT cluster as an extremely solid “fourth” scorer. Definitely strongest in VFA, but, like the rest of the Waterloo team, also picks up questions across the board. I think I’m too old to understand what this is about but: C.

20. Andrew McCowan (Queens; Sain)
Andrew continued his excellent performances from last year with dominance at the tournaments he attended this year, particularly in his strengths of religion/myth (did you know he wrote literally the entire religion category of CN?) Excited to see him bully the circuit from Queens next year and continue to help the Queens club develop into what’s promising to be a very strong team.

21. Albert Li (Toronto; Karel)
Various Toronto people have definitely told this story before, but one of my first extended interactions with Albert was when he casually strolled into a Nats practice in 2022 and third lined a history tossup. After an already impressive rookie year, Albert took his specialty of history (for some reason Albert also enjoys knowing about America??) and added an extremely strong VFA specialty (he got every !!! VFA tossup at Fall !!) to his developing generalisty abilities. I’m pretty convinced that if the heavens had smiled upon Albert’s flight to ICT that Toronto B would’ve been pushing for the title right alongside Waterloo and McMaster. As is, I’m sure Albert will likewise slaughter D1 ICT next year, should he choose to play it.

22. Gabrielle Clark (Ottawa; Fiora)
23. Connor Haines (Ottawa; Farina)
I didn’t really get the chance to see either Gabrielle or Connor play this year except for two games at Regionals unfortunately, but in the two games I saw them play they both had extremely impressive buzzes (particularly on history as I recall?). An Ottawa A with both of them is clearly in the top tier of teams on the circuit, as evidenced by their upset in prelims over a full Waterloo team and performance against Cormac + Kevin at MRNA. I’m not sure what year they’re in, but I really hope they’re both able to stick around for next year’s Ottawa team as well. I’m giving the edge to Gabrielle for her slightly stronger Regionals performance, but honestly looking at stats they seem to have nearly identical numbers whenever they play together.

24. David Snoddon (Toronto; Matthew)
David the GOAT didn’t play quite as much as last year, but he still put-up excellent performances whenever he attended. In particular, David’s lit speciality has continued to develop well, putting him solidly in the second tier of lit players in the circuit and giving him a consistent ~20 ppg at all difficulties and with basically any set of teammates. Also claims to be trying to learn more non-lit things, which has definitely started to show in practices at least. Would be #1 if he jumped into Lake Ontario.

25. Yadu Kukenthiran (Western; Erk)
Yadu got a bit shafted by basically always sitting in Tony’s shadow, but his history prowess is nothing to scoff at. Even playing with both Tony and Jay, he managed to put up solid numbers at Winter and put up great numbers at C++, ARCADIA, and UG champs as well. His valiant effort to play C++ on -5 hours of sleep will never be forgotten o7. Will hopefully serve as inspiration for Wenying Wu next year.

I’d also like to give some honourable mentions to Nick Edwards (McGill; Heath), who led McGill’s B team this year (and hopefully next year at ICT as well ); Kane Nguyen (McMaster; Athos), who put up monster performances at SCT and ICT; and Jared He (Waterloo; Dart), who I haven’t played against much this year but had a great SCT and terrifying buzzes at C++ and also gave some very useful feedback at CN playtesting.

I'll probably have a rookie ballot and community writeup at some point but no promises.

[KawaiiPotato]

Hey umm... sorry for the wait! I was originally going to get this done like a week earlier but a new weeb rpg game just released so I obviously had to adjust my priorities. Also some of these were done at 4 A.M. at an airport so don't expect the highest of quality. If you're curious the game is Honkai Star Rail and my UID is 600310689

Each player is assigned a Pokémon that I think fits them or how they play quizbowl, as well as an explanation for why I chose them. Most of them are kinda vague and don't fit well, probably because I don't know everyone in the circuit well enough. Please don't take them too seriously; a lot of them are also just jokes.

Just a heads up: at a certain point in writing I noticed that I was just rambling on about how everyone is great and impressive etc. etc., so a lot fo the entries might look similar. I promise though, I am just that impressed with the players we have. I also looked at stats much less than ranking on plain vibes, especially when assigning Pokémon.

Regular Ballot

1. Ian Chow
Ian has had a phenomenal year of Quizbowl across multiple difficulties. At ACF Winter, his solo performance was almost enough to sneak into the top bracket, missing out by just a few PPG to Toronto A. At Regionals and MRNA he was the highest non-soloing player, just a testament to his dominance this year.

Pokémon: Ian gets Groudon for being both an offensive and defensive powerhouse in the highest of tiers. It has incredible attack, defense, and even utility if need be (like when he was needed to solo Winter). Very strong, very versatile, very good buzzes.

2. Sky Li
Sky has never lost a closed Canadian circuit tournament in the last year (worded this way specifically to exclude Nats), and he has been a crucial member to every team he has been on. Insane PPGs paired with some very clean wins mean that Sky is an immense threat to every team for the foreseeable future.

Pokémon: Sky gets Rayquaza, mostly because it is a flying type and can control weather. It also has huge Attack and Special Attack, not to mention a bunch of high-base power moves. Shaymin-Sky would probably have fit the “Sky” reasoning better, but I plan to get a Shaymin plushie in the future and I don’t want to associate it with Sky.

3. Tony Chen
Tony is another member I’ve contemplated putting number one. He’s the number one active Canadian player in the top 100 list, and it’s certainly reflected in his performance this year. I hope to see more of Tony’s dominance next year, but I heard he might be coming to Toronto, so that might just come naturally.

Pokémon: Tony is Beast? No. Tony is Ultra Beast. He gets Kartana because of the Base-181 attack that cuts through almost anything. Very good wallbreaker after setting up a Swords Dance, even more if you get that Beast Boost to truly boost his abilities to be one of the most fearsome in the circuit.

4. Kevin Fan
Unfortunately, I’ve only been able to bear witness to Kevin Fan at Eminent Victorians and Logomachy. But, from what I’ve heard from TorQB, everyone is scared of him. His Nats performance was also quite incredible, sporting the highest PPG of any quizbowler on a Canadian team.

Pokémon: Dynamaxed Rotom-Fan, pretty self-explanatory.

5. Cormac Beirne
Similar to Kevin, Cormac has brought McGill some amazing results. Among the times I’ve seen him play, he seems so knowledgeable in just about anything that comes up that I still can’t tell what his best categories are.

Pokémon: Cormac and Mewtwo are both generally just very flashy in every appearance. Cormac was also an antagonist to UofT quizbowl due to how good he is, much like Mewtwo in the first movie.

101. Gareth Thorlakson
I think Gareth showed up to as many Toronto Quizbowl practices as closed non-UofT players have combined, maybe even less. Jokes aside, Gareth’s reputation definitely holds up to the tales I’ve been told by my elders before his return from the abyss. I do wish he came to practice more often though, and will likely keep bugging him about it, not that I’m alone in this.

Pokémon: Gareth is… Slaking. His absence at practice is reflected in the Truant ability, but even Slaking can come to practice once every two turns. That’s not to say Gareth is weak; nobody wants to take a Choice Banded Giga Impact.

7. Ben Chapman
Ben “Deez Nuts” Chapman is the sole person responsible for turning University of Toronto Quizbowl from a bonuses-oriented team to a tossup-getting one. Once a specialist, but now caved and is a full-fledged generalist. It was an honour being your teammate at ACF Winter.

Pokémon: As the premier science player of the club and I think of the entire circuit, Ben gets Deoxys. Much like Ben, it has high speed and enormous offensive power, with an enormous amount of coverage moves. Also it fights Sky, which I’m going to interpret as American-on-American violence when they both take turns neg each other out of AFA.

8. Milan Fernandez
Even while being stuck soloing for Niagara, Milan still manages to snag some crazy wins against some top-tier teams. A very solid player whose entry into the generalist role was a pretty smooth transition, at least from my perspective.

Pokémon: Zygarde is a Pokémon that can function well on its own or on a team, having various options to set up, apply status conditions, or just hit hard. It also has huge bulk, especially when it transforms into its complete forme.

9. Adrian Wong
Adrian’s breadth and depth have both been exceptional. From leading McMasters to an SCT win to a solid performance at ICT to topping Waterloo’s MRNA PPG, his performances have been a delight to watch. Also did very well at Eminent Victorians, which left a huge impression on me.

Pokémon: Adrian gets a Corviknight because I’ve seen him with that meme bird profile picture for so long, thinking it was a crow or raven for all that time, that I’m associating him with a corvid. Also Corviknight is a taxi and Adrian drives people sometime so I guess there's that.

10. Wenying Wu
Wenying’s literature knowledge always scares me. At practices, she powers faster than anyone else I see, on things I’ve never heard of. Very good at other categories too, and the reasons she knows things is at times hilarious.

Pokémon: Chandelure has a high Special Attack and gets pretty good coverage, and arguably so does Wenying when you analogize liberally. Plus, Litwick as close as a Pokémon can get to being a Sanrio character, so it is only fitting.

11. Raymond Chen
Raymond too is a spooky literature player, and doubles as the only biology knower on the team quite frequently. I would’ve loved to see more of Toronto How Am I Gonna Link My SOUNDCLOUD, Grandma??? instead of just facing them one game.

Pokémon: Raymond gets the distinction for being the only Mega Pokémon in this list, that being the final form of the adorable little grass starter we both know and love. That Pokémon being, of course, Meganium.

12. Jay Misuk
Like other youngsters, I haven’t interacted too much with Jay in an academic Quizbowl setting, but I do remember Winter, and it was not pretty what Western did to the other teams. Also a big Pokémon fan, which is usually a plus in my book.

Pokémon: As a mainstay in the competitive Quizbowl scene for years, Jay is seemingly never all that much affected by power creep. Strong players come and go, but you can always rely on Jay to put up good performances. I believe Heatran, which I think is the longest-lasting OU Pokémon currently, is a good representation.

13. Max Gedajlovic
Aside from C++, I’ve had the honour of experiencing Max through the medium of CMST team names. Both times, Max absolutely obliterated me, even while I was scorekeeping. (I forgor which Max was which) Quizchess when?

Pokémon: Max gets Bisharp for two reasons: 1. It has an Axe on its head 2. It is a chess reference. Kingambit would have been nice but it doesn’t have the Axe, which is definitely the best weapon to have on your head.

14. Sam Hauer
I enjoyed watching Sam during his week in Toronto, both in practice and CMST. He’s a big reason why I miss UBC in Canadian circuit tournaments.

Pokémon: I feel like Sam gives off the vibes of a Jirachi, especially with its appearance in the sixth Pokémon movie. Sam can probably grant any wish, as long as that wish is to get a lot of tossups and bonuses correct.

15. Mattias Ehatamm
I remember seeing this guy at Fall Novice and thinking “hey, this dude is pretty good”. Little did I know that was just the beginning, and that by the end of the year he would be an intercontinental champion. And of course I have to mention the legendary 5/0/0.

Pokémon: Gholdengo is one of the new Pokémon from the Scarlet and Violet games that had a tremendous impact on the meta and quickly proved itself to be one of the best. I think this trajectory is quite suitable to describe the growth of Mati. (sidenote: Gholdengo also looks like Joe Su’s profile picture here)

16. Parth Jagtap
Parth has also improved a lot in the past year. One of the best beliefs players around, especially with non-mainstream beliefs that are not frequently asked about. A very strong film and economics player too, on top of literature, of course.

Pokémon: Celesteela. Well rounded and can function as both a sweeper and a pivot. Very versatile and is also a beliefs™ reference itself. (is also an ultra beast)

17. Andrew McCowan
I don’t know much about Andrew personally, but his stats and performances across many tournaments show that he can compete with the best. Good luck with Law School!

Pokémon: Landorus-Therian is an all around solid, top tier Pokémon in every single format that allows it. Everything it does increases its winning odds and is never a liability on any team.

18. Michael Du
Michael seemingly always buzzes in history questions a line or two before I even know what is happening. Used to neg pretty hard, but has mostly fixed that problem.

Pokémon: From what I’ve heard, Michael is very sleepy. Komala it is.

19. Liam Kusalik
One of the best science players around. As someone who never has to science again in their life, I am definitely fascinated by Liam’s performances.

Pokémon: Liam is tall, and so is Alolan Exeggutor. It has an arsenal of high damaging moves and functions extraordinarily well as part of a team.

20. Albert Li
Sweeping the entire VFA category at ACF Fall is no small feat – especially when you consider that he’s an absolute monster in other categories too. Albert is one of the few people to enjoy American history questions, which I cannot respect out of principle but is nonetheless amazed.

Pokémon: As the next protagonist of UofT Quizbowl and the successor of the Li dynasty, Albert gets Samurott. In addition to Oshawott being a selectable starter in both Gen 5 games and PLA, it also is the protagonist of PokéPark 2: Wonders Beyond.

21. Gabrielle Clark
22. Connor Haines
Going to group the two above together, since they’ve achieved similar PPGs at tournaments. Their impressive Regionals performance is what places them here, taking games off teams such as McMaster and Waterloo. Very much looking forward to facing them next year.

Pokémon: Trevenant and Gourgeist – tbh I just found two Pokémon that were counterparts of each other, but also do things differently.

23. Nicolas Edwards
Nick is one of those players you can always count on. I’m looking forward to seeing him lead McGill’s next D2 aspiring team. Good at both academic and trash – he’s achieved a perfect balance unlike some of us who are touch-starved for grass.

Pokémon: In the anime, Ash's Gliscor was quite a playful fellow, but it never disappointed when matched up against other strong Pokémon. Gliscor is also just cool, and poisoning it just makes it stronger.

24. David Snoddon
My biggest impression of David this year (at tournaments) was him arriving a question and a bonus late at our first ACF Winter game, then proceeding to sweep the entire literature category in that very same game. Very good specialist with good depth.

Pokémon: I can’t wait for David to clown react me once he finds out what a Blacephalon is. It’ll blow his mind.

25. Gaian Valdegamo
Fantastic Fine Arts player, perfect for rounding out that Waterloo A team.

Pokémon: Ok so uhh in this Korean gacha game I play there’s a character called Gaian whose whole schtick is that he is the avatar of Anubis and uses sand powers. There’s no Anubis Pokémon so I’m giving Gaian one with Sand powers – Sandaconda.


Honourable Mentions:
Jared He and James Ah Yong - Two very good players that make Waterloo look like an ICT contender again next year. Good stats and even better Catstats.
Caleb Ott and Micah Colman - Absolutely insane (as in crazy good) rookies that will for sure make an even bigger splash next year.
Yadu Kukenthiran - Absolute madman playing C++ from Singapore, and still managed to do well while running on sheer willpower and determination
Kane Nguyen - Did well both supporting the McMaster's team at SCT and ICT, and soloing at MRNA as a specialist.
Isaac Thangaraj - Was quite fun playing with Isaac at fall and at IQBT qualifiers.
Elena Bai - Demolished Toronto's chances for the D2 title at ACF fall before the prelims were even over. McGill's SCT team is looking quite fearsome.

Rookie Ballot:
There might be some bias in the Rookie ballot here. Because CN was split into two sites, I am unaware of how people performed at Ottawa outside of what the stats show me. Also I've stopped giving reasons to why I gave people certain Pokémon.
1. Matthias Ehatamm
2. Michael Du
See above.
3. Caleb Ott
4. Micah Colman
First year of quizbowl and they’re already well-adjusted to 2-3 dot tournaments. Waterloo is looking scarier every year with the impressive amount of good rookies.
Pokémon: Magmortar and Electivire
5. Isaac Thangaraj
He thinks he’s frauding everything, but actually just knows them. I would recruit him into our D2 ICT efforts next year but he’s already taken :(
Pokémon: Drapion
6. Jacob Garofalo
7. Max Chemtov
This pair of novices from McGill have certainly impressed, putting up some very respectable numbers at tournaments of all levels, including Nats.
Pokémon: Accelgor and Escavalier
8. Liz Van Oorschot
From what I’ve heard Liz is another Reach player, and if I learned anything from Wenying, it is to fear them.
Pokémon: Salamence
9. Ben Wismath
10. Sarah Khan
I’ve noticed that nobody from the Toronto site of Canadian Novice has made it onto the rookie ballot yet (partly because nobody familiar with them has made a rookie ballot yet), and I really think these two deserve it.
Ben is 9th due to his higher ppg at CN and his deep religious knowledge scales really well.
Sarah has also been improving from tournament to tournament, being the main reason we beat Toronto Soundcloud at MRNA.
Pokémon: Houndoom and Arcanine

Honourable Mentions:
Cendikiawan Suryaatmadja - Another very impressive rookie that was present at various tournaments. Has most powers and most negs at the Toronto's Canadian Novice Site.
Ian Theysmeyer - High PPG at Ottawa CN speaks for itself.
James Wang - Please play more.
Maude-Sophie Lockman - Good stats at CN and took my team down at SCT
Benjamin Yu - Good stats at CN and almost took my team down at SCT
Franklin Wu - I'm so sorry for bullying into playing MRNA, but honestly you did quite well.
Ryan Zhu - Pretty solid all around. Excited to see Ryan next year

[benchapman]

Rookie Ballot:
1. Mattias Ehatamm (University of Waterloo)
2. Michael Du (University of Waterloo)
3. Caleb Ott (University of Waterloo)
Not much more to really say about Mattias, Michael, and Caleb; they were all able to hold their own against much more experienced players at difficult tournaments. Also apparently some Waterloo people are making cards now...
4. Micah Colman (University of Waterloo)
Micah was close to making my overall ballot; he showed at SCT and Fall that he can be dominant at lower difficulties. He also had a strong Winter, putting up 40 PPG and outscoring Michael on Waterloo B.
5. Max Chemtov (McGill University)
While Max scores less than the other people around him in the poll, he scales very well in physics/math and had a strong Nationals performance.
6. Isaac Thangaraj (University of Toronto)
Isaac has a lot of good generalism/buzzer speed from having played Reach and in high school, but does have good depth in AFA and had a strong performance both at SCT (as an anchor) and ICT (as a support player).
7. Jacob Garofalo (McGill University)
While Jacob seems to have stopped playing for now, he was quite good in the fall. I was really impressed by his buzzing in the McGill A game I read at Fall; it suggested he wouldn't have too much of an issue scaling up.
8. James Wang (University of Ottawa)
James has been less active than most of the other people on the list but is a very solid science player who had a good Winter leading Ottawa A once he arrived.
9. Adil Haider (McMaster University)
While he did have a fair bit of negs at Regionals, putting up 20 PPG next to Adrian while buzzing in (so I'm told) similar categories is very impressive.
10. Ben Wismath (University of Toronto)
Ben I think has flown a bit under the radar for non-Toronto people, but his religion knowledge is the real deal and he also seems to be picking up the lit canon. He had a strong performance at Canadian Novice and I think he's in a good position to take a big step forward next year.

Honourable mentions: Maude-Sophie Lockman, who played Regionals (!!) as her first tournament and would doubtlessly prefer if French answers were acceptable; Sarah Khan who's a good lit/philosophy player and did well at Canadian Novice; and Devito Stevanus for playing many more (hard) tournaments than almost anyone else on the circuit despite being a rookie.

Community Ballot:
I'm sorry if the structure here is a bit odd; I wasn't really sure how to quite arrange this section.

For CN, first I'd like to thank all of my co-editors. In particular, Sky Li and Cormac Beirne for being our fearless leaders; Raymond Chen for squeezing more 1-dot questions out of himself than he wanted and Wenying Wu for letting herself get hoodwinked into editing some literature; Ian Chow and Aaron Dos Remedios for putting a ton of care into their categories and producing some great, well-received, and cool questions; and Dennis Beeby, Adrian Wong, and Ian Dewan for retooling my rough history/SS/philosophy questions into usable fare for the tournament. Max Gedajlovic also cunningly avoided having to edit any of my questions by quickly filling out his portion of the literature distribution.

For non-editors, I'd like to shout out Kane Nguyen, Jamie Chow, Alex Galvin, Jesse Ward-Bond, and Oscar Liang for writing good questions that were a breeze to edit for me. Andrew McCowan also was a huge contributor, writing the second-most questions and nearly all of the religion/myth early on in production. It was definitely a lot of work, but I think we can be proud of the set we produced at the end and am glad we made it happen (even if I wouldn't necessarily do it again; I've written enough 1-dot questions for a long while).

It's been a pleasure to be a named exec along with Sky Li, Wenying Wu, and Jamie Chow; they've all done so much work making the Toronto club function. Joey Sun is also the MVP general exec. In addition to TDing our CN mirror that had a lot of team-shifting because of poor weather, he also helps out more than he needs to/should with running practices and getting buzzers.

Tony Chen for contributing Octobuzzy the spider buzzers to our SCT mirror; it was exactly what our scuffed D1 field deserved.

I understand Nadia Dakdouki is very involved with running the McGill club along with Cormac Beirne. Russell Valerio was also a very nice host for 60% of Toronto at Regionals.

James Wang, Maude-Sophie Lockman, and Benjamin Yu (and many other Ottawa/Carleton people) have done a great job reviving their clubs. I also understand graduated players like Carper winner Joe Su and Henry Atkins helped with this process.

While this is less Canada-centric, I learned a lot from working with Henry Atkins and Erik Christensen on MRNA and seeing their comments/edits on both my and other people's questions. They (along with many others) also provided a lot of useful CN playtesting feedback. Erik is also one of our most frequent staffers, which is very appreciated.

My apologies if I've omitted anyone, there are many people who put in a ton of work helping their club run and I am sadly unaware of the nature of it from my outside perspective.

[Triglav]

Main Ballot
1. Tony Chen
2. Sky Li
3. Ben Chapman
4. Ian Chow
5. Gareth Thorlakson
6. Kevin Fan
7. Cormac Beirne
8. Adrian Wong
9. Milan Fernandez
10. Jay Misuk
11. Max Gedajlovic
12. Mattias Ehatamm
13. Raymond Chen
14. Wenying Wu
15. Sam Hauer
16. Liam Kusalik
17. Andrew McCowan
18. Parth Jagtap
19. Michael Du
20. Kane Nguyen
21. Gaian Valdegamo
22. Nick Edwards
23. Connor Haines
24. Gabrielle Clark
25. Caleb Ott

Rookie Ballot
1. Mattias Ehatamm
2. Michael Du
3. Caleb Ott
4. Micah Colman
5. Adil Haider
6. Max Chemtov
7. Isaac Thangaraj
8. Jacob Garofalo
9. James Wang
10. Kevin Anderson

[kanenguyen9]

Instead of creating a top players poll, I will write up a top passengers poll of all of the CanQB players I got to drive all around the East Canada circuit (and even to Chicago!) this year. Kevin, if you really need a top 25 poll from me, it’ll go as, 1. Cormac Beirne, 2. Kevin Fan, 3-25. the 24 ACF Regionals top scorers minus Gareth. 26. Gareth Thorlakson.

1. David Snoddon: My NAQT sports buzzword rival. Damn, it feels good to have you as a personal cheerleader and gassing me up as the next Richard Petty as I blast through the 401 at a breakneck pace. Thank you for knowing enough about college football and sports and for tolerating my commentary of Syracuse nearly beating Clemson that day. I know Cormac didn’t.

2. Tomas Jakovac: The reasonable voice of the club. Thank you for ensuring we make it to Montreal and not Rouyn-Noranda by incessantly reminding me not to switch lanes for 3+ hours. Thank you for taking the wheel as I recover from a caffeine crash during our ride from Chicago to Hamilton. Thank you for being a great and patient teammate for all those years. Even though you’re not at Mac anymore, we’ll still see each other at Waterloo practice next fall.

3. Martin Profant: Congrats on getting accepted to the UofT MD/PhD program, you smart, immunology-loving cookie!!! Another reasonable voice in the car to combat this ballot’s number 10 passenger’s “deez nuts-ness.” I really enjoyed our small talk about the poor application of statistics in biology papers. Hopefully, you’ll still have the time to play a tournament or two next year, so we duke it out on some biology tossup.

4. Jan Arulseelan: I argue that Jan has the best 0.3/0.3 in all of CanQB, and quizbowl writers are conspiring for his downfall by not writing more about von Neumann algebra. For an older fellow in the scene, you enjoyed some of the K-pop and EDM music I played in the car, which is very rare for me to experience (I have the worst music taste). I know you partake in this club to socialize and joke around, but message me if you’re down for a tournament.

5. Adil Haider: When I first met you at a Reach practice, you told me, “I thought you had to pay to be a part of this club.” I’m pretty sure that learning random facts is a free activity, but here we are. I really enjoyed your story of you “singlehandedly” helping the NDP win the Hamilton West riding during the 2022 provincial election, your stance on “Toronto supremacy,” and your call to arms against Denzil Minnan-Wong. Pretty clean at the buzzer after learning how to play the game mid-Regionals.

6/7. Micah Colman and Caleb Ott: Micah wears a green jacket, and Caleb doesn’t. That was how I discerned you two during our first encounters (yikes). Looking back, you two talked a lot about Reach during that ride (bad trivia format) and now are focused on being the best at quizbowl (good trivia format), preparing to give America another sucker punch for next year’s ICT. I look forward to watching you, Jared, and James improve over the next year. Now go get that back-to-back championship.

8: Mati Ehatamm: So you essentially drove without a driver’s license? Is this why I have to drive Waterloo to ARCADIIA? And Morrisburg?!?!?! I definitely had opinions about you. But don’t worry. Those opinions are now gone. You lead a very healthy and welcoming Waterloo club and progressing at an insane rate where I can see you anchoring Waterloo for the UG ICT and Nats titles. I will try to remember who wrote “The Garden” for our next match.

9. Michael Du: You still didn’t e-transfer me $5 for gas. I initially thought you were the mellowed-out member of the quartet. But after learning about your sleeping habits, I think it was just you instinctively shutting down whenever you aren’t playing quizbowl or writing an exam. Can we agree that Mati did us dirty by forcing only us to play the pre-edited ‘airplane disasters involving no casualties’ paсk instead of the Ice Spice paсk during vanity paсk night?

10. Ben Chapman: Here’s some context. The day that Penn Bowl was happening was also the day that Queen’s was having their fall visit day for high schoolers and an unsanctioned FOCO street party. Because of that, more people from the GTA drove up to Kingston that day. So for every 3 to 4 cars we passed, you had the audacity to remark that they were driving to Kingston to play Penn Bowl. Thank you for the many reminders. There’s also that story about you and Denny’s. Really cool. Continue being silly. It makes quizbowl and the circuit fun to be a part of. Next year’s Toronto team looks ungodly, and I know you’ll be an integral part of that quartet/quintet/sextet/septet (So much talent!) that will bring home the D1 ICT.

11. Adrian Wong: You wander too much, you are very indecisive at times, you give me the wrong directions, and you forgot to tell Jan that we’ll be leaving Hamilton for ICT at 9 am… and I am grateful to play alongside you for the last 4 years. We came a long way from our first ACF Fall trip to Rochester, where we got to hear Jay ramble about the debaucherous ways of the older iterations of the McMaster team, whose zenith was supposedly unreachable for future cohorts. Three and half years later, we placed 6th at ICT and led the club to its best-ever nationals finish. Also, I want to thank you for solving a lot of the club’s problems that I couldn’t address during my leadership tenure. I would’ve given up on the club if wonderful people like you, Tomas, Jan, Murad, Esther, Daniel, and Moh didn’t join that year. The last couple of years must’ve been hard for you as a club president, but the club is still here, and I commend you for it. If you’re still at McMaster, I’ll promise to start carding. If you’re going to Ottawa, I’ll be rooting for the GeeGees at Nats. If neither McMaster nor Ottawa is an option, go to Waterloo, not Toronto.

This circuit is a great community. There are too many people to thank, from the major players that keep the circuit healthy and growing like James, Raymond and Sky to the old sages that keep everyone in check like Henry and Joe. Andrew did a fantastic job highlighting every small clubs’ contributions to the circuit and their importance to the ecosystem.

[lkusalik]

As a Data Science major, I always feel like I should try my hand at making an algorithm ballot whenever the player poll comes around, but it never actually happens because I quickly realize that a) I have no idea how to build a statistical model of a quiz bowl game that’s both reasonably accurate and gives me a way to generate a fully transitive ranking of players, and b) even if I could dream up such a model, it would probably require detailed buzzpoint stats from every tournament and/or just data from a lot more tournaments than we actually hold in a year to fit it properly. Nevertheless, the number of Waterloo players in contention for the top 25, plus the presence of a few ballots submitted by others in the club, have goaded me into submitting a ballot anyway, so you get my opinionated and probably biased takes instead.

1. Sky Li
Although there are many people who could plausibly go here, in the end I didn’t find any of their arguments for first nearly as compelling as the fact that Sky top-scored the winning team at like, basically every tournament they played this year. In addition to being a great generalist, Sky is also possibly the only person on the circuit who can beat full Waterloo A to CS tossups, due to actually studying the subject for their degree.
2. Tony Chen
The broadest 3-dot generalist on the circuit, Tony is liable to pull out a good buzz on basically any category at basically any level, and his ability to lead Western teams to respectable tournament finishes even when playing with very little support is extremely impressive. Read us packets for basically the entire car ride to ICT and spared Michael from the middle seat, which was very much appreciated.
3. Cormac Beirne
While not nearly as consistent as some of the other players around him, Cormac at his peak delivered some of the most impressive regular season performances from anyone on this ballot. Also gets activity points for showing up basically every circuit tournament except Winter Closed (which he played a later mirror of anyway), often dragging McGill teams along with him.
4. Ben Chapman
Of all the people on the circuit, I consider Ben the toughest opponent to play on the science questions, and he’s perhaps the only player on the Canadian circuit who I feel can consistently go toe-to-toe with me on physics and osci. He’s also improved massively as a generalist this year, though, as evidenced by his top-scoring the Toronto team at UG champs and his extremely impressive solo performance at ICT, which moved him up a few places on my ballot.
5. Ian Chow
An absolutely terrifying generalist at the 2-dot level (see: ACF winter) who also has pockets of deep knowledge that make him a valuable player at higher difficulties. While he can certainly put up a lot of points at 3 dot (see: Winter Closed or ACF Regionals) I don’t think his record as a team-leading generalist is nearly as impressive as, say, Sky of Tony, and Ben gets ranked above him for the ICT performance.
6. Kevin Fan
Had a very impressive performance at nats, putting up nearly 30 ppg while leading McGill to a solid third-bracket finish, and I could see him being ranked much higher based on that performance alone. However, Kevin wasn’t particularly active for much of the season before that, and frankly I was looking for reasons to put people who should be in the top 5 lower than that because there are just too many top 5 players this year.
7. Gareth Thorlakson
Gareth at 7th feels too low, but in the end I could have spend hours rearranging the top of my ballot and still not be satisfied because someone has to be 7th. Like Kevin, had an impressive nats performance, putting up a team-leading 28 ppg across the playoff rounds in the second bracket, but in the end I’m not sure he’s nearly as good as a team leading generalist as others above him.
8. Adrian Wong
Has done a very impressive job leading McMaster at lower difficulty tournaments, most notably to a 6th place finish at DII ICT, a run which included a 5-point win over Rutgers B that played a somewhat under-appreciated role in Waterloo winning the whole thing. There’s not a lot of data on him at higher difficulties, though, and I’m not sure he packets quite the punch of those above him at 3+ dots.
9. Milan Fernandez
I frankly don’t know how he can stand soloing every tournament he plays, but Milan does a fine job of it nonetheless. Has very deep knowledge of literature and fine arts, and on the right pack has to potential to upset some pretty strong teams. Also a very nice person, and was a lot of fun to play with at last summer’s IO mirror.
10. Wenying Wu
An extremely deep literature specialist who also seems to have pockets of deep knowledge in other areas of the humanities. Wenying has always struck me as a player with a lot of real knowledge, which is probably why she got more site-wide first buzzes at nats than anyone else on the circuit.
11. Max Gedajlovic
Though I haven’t gotten to see Max play this year due to the return to in-person tournaments, his stats make it clear that he’s adapted well to being a team-leading generalist after Lia’s departure. Has great literature knowledge, and can snipe questions that go late in basically any category. Also has the best game sense of anyone on the circuit.
12. Jay Misuk
Put up strong numbers while playing alongside Tony at winter, regionals, and SCT. Didn’t play anything else, though, so there’s not a lot of data to justify ranking him higher.
13. Sam Hauer
Another player with relatively limited data, but outscored Max at C++ and put up solid numbers at Winter Closed, SCT and CMST, so he’s clearly still pretty good at this quizbowl thing.
14. Mattias Ehatamm
While Waterloo A tends to have very balanced scoring due to essentially being a team of 4 specialists, I think Mati is pretty clearly the best of us, especially in the second half of the year. At this point, his lit is probably stronger than my science, and he also has pockets of deep knowledge all across the humanities. Has been known to mistake physics questions for math ones, but this is a forgivable offence given how well he does on other categories.
15. Raymond Chen
Another extremely strong literature specialist, who is also probably the strongest bio player in the circuit due to actually doing that stuff in a lab or something. Raymond’s ranking is pushed down a bit due to the narrowness of his specialization, but he’s still a great player and is deep enough is his categories to be a solid contributor on any team, even at nats.
16. Parth Jagtap
I feel like I tend to have very good games when playing against Parth-lead teams, the most recent example being at Winter Closed this year. That said, he’s definitely improved a lot this year, and has shown himself to be both a great team-leading generalist at lower difficulties, such as MRNA (where his team defeated a Sky-Ian duo in their round robin match) and ICT, as well as a solid contributor at higher difficulties, such as at UG champs.
17. Michael Du
I feel like Michael and I tend to perform quite similarly when we play together - although Michael usually gets slightly more tossups than I do, he also tends to neg a lot more while doing so. Ultimately, I’m giving Michael the edge here because of his science knowledge that largely gets shadowed when playing with me - I’ve noticed looking through the stats that Michael seems to do better relative to Mati when they’re not playing with me, and I suspect a large part of that is Michal getting science question I would otherwise be beating him to.
18. Liam Kusalik
Yours truly. I’m not self-deprecating enough not to acknowledge the fact that I’m one of the best 4/4 science players active on the circuit, but now that I have teammates with strong coverage of most of the rest of the distribution, I feel like I’ve mostly stopped caring about being good at categories other than science, and to a lesser extent, thought. That being said, I like to think I play the specialist role fairly well, putting up a consistent 20-30 ppg while buzzing primarily on my categories and not making too many unnecessary negs.
19. Andrew McCowan
For whatever reason I haven’t had many opportunities to play against Andrew over the past few years, despite both of us being reasonably active on the circuit. That being said, his stats this year speak for themselves, and he’s clearly a solid generalist and strong anchor for Queen’s teams. His Winter Closed performance was particularly impressive, showing he can perform well in a team-leading role, even at 3 dots.
20. Gabrielle Clark
21. Connor Haines
These two only get one writeup because they’re inexorably linked in my head as that pair on Ottawa A who are really good and upset both us and McMaster in the prelims at regionals. In the end I ranked Gabrielle over Connor due to slightly higher scoring at regionals, but overall they seem to have very similar skill levels and also complement each other quite well on a team.
22. Gaian “C” Valdegamo
Gaian’s vfa is certainly the strongest 1/1 in the Waterloo club, and probably among the strongest in the circuit as a whole. Also has deep knowledge of geography and linguistics, and can get good buzzes on science when it’s related to his civil engineering degree. Does very well as a fourth scorer on Waterloo A, and his pop culture knowledge was invaluable at ICT.
23. Nick Edwards
A solid humanities generalist who performed well as an anchor at winter, SCT and MRNA, and will likely be an important part of McGill’s roster in the coming years. Should play some harder tournaments, though, since there isn’t really any data on him above the 2-dot level yet.
24. Caleb Ott
Caleb has an extremely broad knowledge base built up from playing reach, and is arguably Waterloo’s best generalist at the 1-2 dot level. Doesn’t scale up nearly as well as some others yet, but I expect that to change as he gets more experience, and he’s likely to become a very formidable player in the next few years.
25. Yadu Kukentheiran
There were also many players I considered for the final spot on my ballot, but in the end I had to give it to Yadu for his strong performances alongside Tony at tournaments like ARCADIA and C++, the latter of which is made all the more impressive by the fact that he was playing it from Singapore in the middle of the night.

Honorable Mentions:
Kane Nguyen, who I really wanted to rank but just couldn’t quite find the room for, and who is always fun to hang out with when he shows up to Waterloo practice, especially when we were all grinding for ICT.
David Snoddon and Albert Li are two more Toronto players I didn’t get to see as much of this year but probably deserve to be ranked base on their stats anyway.
Jared He, James Ah Yong and Micah Colman are three more strong Waterloo players who would all probably have arguments for being in the top 25 if this wasn’t such a competitive year for the player poll.
And finally, a bunch of people from other schools who I’m probably just not remembering right now since I’m not super familiar with the players at other clubs. Sorry to anyone I've left off because of it, and to everyone on the circuit, whatever your role may be, thank you for making quizbowl such a great community to be a part of.

[mehatamm]

Rookie Ballot:
1. Mattias Ehatamm
2. Michael Du
3. Caleb Ott
4. Micah Colman
5. Isaac Thangaraj
6. Max Chemtov
7. Jacob Garofalo
8. Ben Wismath
9. Sarah Khan
10. Adil Haider

[skewit]

I don’t have much to say for everyone unfortunately since I haven’t been able to see a lot of the eastern players.

1. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo)
2. Michael Du (Waterloo)
3. Caleb Ott (Waterloo)
4. Micah Colman (Waterloo)
lol yeah

5. Isaac Thangaraj (Toronto)
Has been playing with the more experienced players at Toronto practices the whole year and consistently impressed. Very good both leading a team (Fall, SCT) and being a supporting player (Winter Closed, ARCADIA, ICT)

6. Jacob Garofalo (McGill)
7. Max Chemtov (McGill)
I only saw Max play in a few Winter games and Logomachy, but he had impressive buzzes and has good stats to back that up overall.

8. Kevin Anderson (Carleton)
9. Max Gross (McGill)
10. Ben Wismath (Toronto)
Already a great religion player that scales up to possibly even Nats difficulty; seems to gradually be picking up lit and generalisty things as well.

HM:
Liz van Oorschot (McGill)
Terrifying CN performance.

James Wang (Ottawa)
Play more so I can figure out where to rank you pls.

Maude-Sophie Lockman (Ottawa)
Seems to neg a lot, which is unironically a good sign.

Adil Haider (McMaster)
Extremely impressive Regionals for what looks like his first and only tournament.

Sarah Khan (Toronto)
A bit neg-prone, but very good at philosophy + literature and she’s picked up your standard generalisty buzzes as well.

[russn1]

I wasn’t initially going to submit a ballot but Max told me that I should, so I think you should blame him for any poor takes. Unfortunately, I did not get to play against most of the circuit because UBC… Therefore, my takes will be reminiscent of a sports fan who doesn’t watch games and tracks stats only.

1. Sky Li
I wasn’t sure who the put first, but with victories at so many different tournaments and with their scoring at difficult tournaments (and seeing a bunch of people ranking Sky first), I’m putting Sky here.
2. Tony Chen
I did get to play against Tony this year. Unfortunately, we took a bunch of Ls. Demolishes my hopes of getting a tossup. Scary player and strong generalist. Scores very well at higher difficulties.
3. Ian Chow
It is very unfortunate that Ian did not get to play ICT this year. A strong generalist, Ian did amazing soloing ACF Winter and scored similarly to the best players on the circuit at other tournaments.
4. Gareth Thorlakson
Gareth top scoring on the Toronto team in the 2nd bracket at ACF Nats stands out the most to me. Unfortunately, also did not get to play ICT. Haven’t got to play against Gareth yet, but I hear he’s quite the Amhist specialist.
5. Benjamin Chapman
I aspire to be able to play 4/4 Science like Ben can. Beating Tony at ICT 1v1 and his strong performances at UG Champs and CMST put him here.
6. Cormac Beirne
I initially wanted to rank Kevin ahead of Cormac for his ACF Nats performance, but if Kevin ranks Cormac higher than himself, then I’m going to trust that take. I always thought that Cormac was just a history and fine arts generalist, but apparently can play science too (C++). Very strong performance at Nats as well, but in a lower bracket than the Toronto players.
7. Kevin Fan
30 PPG at ACF Nats. This ranking seems too low for that performance though. Should have played more quizbowl this year.
8. Max Gedajlovic
Okay, here’s my hot take infused with the UBC bias. Max has done an awesome job filling in the lead scoring role after Lia’s departure. He is a great generalist and had very strong performances at SCT, UG Champs and ACF Winter. Why do I rank him so highly? We should’ve gone to finals with Penn State at ACF Winter, but I decided to neg a chemistry tossup. Furthermore, the only reason why we were in the 2nd lowest bracket at UG Champs was because of my negs against Rutgers. Don’t blame Max for my failures. I’m really going to miss Max as a teammate and I really wish that I could’ve been a better player on his teams (I still suck at science).
9. Adrian Wong
Sorry for pushing you lower on the rankings, Adrian. What an amazing run at ICT. Clearly a beast at the lower difficulties (47 powers at SCT) and still very strong at higher difficulties.
10. Milan Fernandez
My current Idiots teammate and future teammate at BHSU. Again, sorry for pushing you down the rankings for the sake of my hot take. Has the unfortunate fate of soloing every tournament, Milan is a very strong specialist in Lit and Fine arts.
11. Jay Misuk
I don’t think Jay played a lot this year and his stats are probably depressed while playing with Tony, but he still scores very well at more difficult tournaments.
12. Wenying Wu
Most first-buzzes at Nats on the circuit. Strong contributor on strong Toronto teams.
13. Sam Hauer
I unfortunately did not get to play with Sam this year, but he put up very strong performances at C++ and CMST. Glad I get to play Idiots with Sam this year, great teammate and very funny. He also destroyed us 1v4 at practice while we were prepping for SCT. Will miss Sam very much as a teammate.
14. Raymond Chen
Another lit player from Toronto. I think he gets marginally outscored by Wenying.
15. Mattias Ehatamm
ICT winner, 5/0/0, need I say more? Congrats on an amazing rookie year.
16. Parth Jagtap
While Parth unfortunately had to play without Albert at ICT, he put up huge numbers in the 2nd bracket. Very strong at lower difficulties and also puts up great numbers at more difficult tournaments.
17. Liam Kusalik
One of the 4/4 Science players on the circuit that I aspire to be. Ranking the Waterloo players confuses me (especially not having played against them this year), so I’ll rank Liam here. Big congrats on the victory at ICT!
18. Michael Du
Another rookie who came out of nowhere. It’s especially hard for me to rank the Waterloo players, so congratulations on an amazing rookie year.
19. Andrew McCowan
Andrew has had crazy good PPGs over many tournaments this year. Much less shadowed by teammates than people ranked above him.
20. Gaian Valdegamo
Like I said, it’s especially hard for me to rank the Waterloo players, but I know Gaian is one of the strongest VFA players on the circuit. Congratulations on the ICT victory!
21. Nick Edwards
Nick had very strong SCT, C++ and Fall tournaments. His performance at SCT that nearly qualified McGill for ICT was particularly impressive. Hope to play against Nick at ICT next year.
22. Albert Li
Albert was also cruelly robbed of an ICT appearance. Very strong performances at SCT and Fall.
23. Kane Nguyen
Awesome support scoring when paired with Adrian, especially in their ICT run. Kane also scored very well at mRNA and SCT.
24. Yadu Kukenthiran
Yadu scores very well at tournaments despite playing with Tony. Also just went 0/5/0 in our Idiots game (which I'm not really counting but still noteworthy!).
25. Gabrielle Clark
Led Ottawa in scoring in a top bracket finish at ACF Regionals against tough competition.

I’m sad that attending UBC means that I’m not able to be a part of the circuit as much as I’d like to be. I won’t be writing a community ballot, but big thank you to all the people who have TD’d this year, staffed, played, written questions, and to the people doing things behind the scenes. This community is awesome and I aim to stay engaged with it, even if only from afar. I’ll be in Toronto for the last half of May and I’m looking forward to meeting some of you at BHSU and Toronto practice.

[dsnodds11]

Thanks everyone for a great year of quizbowl. Sorry if my rankings are bad, please note I no longer have grammarly downloaded so my writeup will even be harder to read than it was last year.

1. Sky Li
Was an amazing president and an even better player. Sky was very consistently at the top at every tournament they played this year and dominated my team time after time.
2. Tony Chen
Another person who was also consistently dominant at tournaments. Destroyed me on literature throughout this year. Very glad that he's coming to Toronto and can eat out with me at House of Gourmet.
3. Ian Chow
A goated teammate who I'm very sad to lose to Western. Everyone mentions him almost making Top Bracket at ACF Winter while soloing, but I think him carrying me at Winter Closed also deserves some mention.
4. Ben Chapman
Another goated teammate. Seeing Ben's improvement from last year has been mindblowing to watch and it was very fun having him carry me in SCT. Ben is fantastic at Science, which I believe to be the hardest category to specialize in. But make no mistake Ben is a generalist.
5. Kevin Fan
Was really fun playing him at SCT wish I could have played him more.
6. Gareth Thorlakson
Really nice guy who doesn't deserve all this slander! Really glad he came back to UOFT this year, he likes Popeyes so obviously he has good taste.
7.Wenying Wu
In my opinion she was the best literature specialist on the circuit this season because she always buzzes so early into the tossup. She completely destroyed lit at ACF Nats and also had a NO NEG Pennbowl. Her power percentage numbers are always off the charts as well. Honestly she might have one of the best 4/4s out of anyone on the circuit.
8. Cormac Beirne
Feels bad having him this low because he had an elite season. Always has amazing discord pfps as well.
9. Milan Fernandez
Was very fun to play him throughout the year and sad that he always did it alone. He knows poetry very well (which is the best kind of lit), very glad he got to have a team at CMST.
10. Adrian Wong
Unfortunately didn't get to play Adrian this year but I remember him powering against my team multiple times at IO, was happy to see him qualify for ICT this year.
11. Sam Hauer
I feel bad because I probably under-ranked him this year as I didn't play him much. But I know he's really good.
12. Max Gedajlovic
Really sad didn't get to play him this year. He's definitely not washed!
13. Matthias Ehatamm
An immaculate rookie season that was capped off by a legendary 5/0/0 performance. He also is very nice and knows maths very well (which is the best quizbowl subject).
14. Raymond Chen
Probably underranked him due to the shadow effect. But his world lit knowledge is very very impressive, as in practice he commonly dunks on ACF nats lit bonuses.
15. Parth Jagtap
Very cool to see his improvement throughout the year. With the exception of C++ played at a top tier during every tourney he played. Seemed to be underranked last ballot, but I think people are waking up this year.
16. Jay Misuk
I'm probably underranking Jay. He knows a lot of things.
17. Liam Kusalik
18. Michael Du
19. Gaian Valdegamo
Very glad this Waterloo team won ICT. I had a lot of fun spamming and liveblogging during April 1st. I really liked how balanced and deep their team was. Liam did a phenomenal job as president of the club and is a great science player. Michael also had a very impressive rookie season and maybe gets overlooked. Gaian is still dominant on VFA and engineering stuff.
20. Andrew McCowan
Also did an amazing job as president this year, as Penn Bowl was very well set up. He is also very good at quizbowl hopefully he gets to play an ICT in grad school.
21. Albert Li
Been really cool to see his improvement during practices this year, he's also very kind and knows baseball. Albert has been on the grind branching out of different category as before ICT I was sending him a line of poetry every day and he was pk-botting like a mad man. I think the saddest part of the whole qb season was March 31st seeing our flight get delayed knowing that Albert wouldn't get to play D2.
22.Yadu Kukenthiran
Utmost respect for him playing with no sleep. He also has a really good taste in music.
23.David Snoddon
24.Nick Edwards
A very kind person and had an amazing sports ballot! I imagine he will climb up this ballot next year, after I see him play some more >=3 dot tournaments. Really could see him making a run next year at ICT.
25.Angus Paterson
Maybe this is Toronto homerism but I feel like Angus got overlooked. He was pretty good at ACF Winter, Winter Closed, Regs and MRNA. Also has the highest banger to message ratio out of anyone I know.

HMS Caleb Ott, Micah Coleman, Kane Nguyen (great driver and buzzword rival :)), Jared He, James Ah Yong, Gabrielle Clark, Connor Haines. Who are all very good!!!!!!!!!!!

[mslockman]

1. Ian Chow
In launching forth on an investigation of the surrounding glories of the higher worlds of suns and systems, a problem arises which demands solution, or will prove an insurmountable barrier to any high achievements. Man looks forth from his planet-home on the starlit vault around him, and seeks to ascertain the mightly laws by which those orbs subsist, and the relations which they sustain to each other. In doing this, he thinks on the immensity of spaces intervening. How, in imagination, is he to reach even the nearest of those suns? How is he to wing his flight from orb to orb? Where is the measuring-rod to fathom the infinite depth?

2. Sky Li
Extreme nervous tension seems to be so peculiarly American a failing that a German physician coming to this country to practice was puzzled by the variety of nervous disorders he was called upon to help, and finally announced his discovery of a new disease which he chose to call "Americanitis." We suffer from "Americanitis" in unlimited forms and degrees. Continued on page 6.

3. Tony Chen
"Now, sir. I hope we shall have no difficulty in getting you to speak up," said the barrister in a very loud, commanding voice.
"I hope not, sir," shouted the witness at the top of his lungs.
"How dare you speak to me in that way?" cried the lawyer
"Because I can't speak no louder, sir," cried the hostler.
"Have you been drinking?"
"Yes, sir."
"I should infer so from your conduct. What have you been drinking?"
"Coffee," hoarsely vociferated the knight of the stable.
"Something stronger than coffee, sir, you've been drinking. Don't look at me like that, sir?" furiously. "Look at the jury, sir! Did you have something in your coffee, sir?"
"Yes, sir"
"What was it?"
"Sugar."
"This man is no fool, my lord — he is worse!" stormed the counsel.

4. Kevin Fan
Mr. A. W. Carmony, of Baltimore, has invented a fan to be kept in motion by clock work, running eight or ten hours, and being stationed on top of a bedstead will keep the sleepers "as cool as a cucumber" during the sultry nights of July and August. At the South, where the heat is increased by mosquito nets, it will be a decided luxury. He exhibited to us a working model, which perform its duties to admiration.

5. Gareth Thorlakson
Oscar Wilde might have been seen by the curiosity-hunter sunning himself in Bond street the other day. After so many months of American civilization he must have felt an unutterable joy to see his beloved Grosvenor Gallery once more. His face wore a placid smile, as if he would say, "Well, my friends, here I am again. I am unchanged, but I have left germs of a mighty revolution in the western hemisphere. I have seen the prairie and the great pork factory at Chicago; but I am still faithful to Bond street. It was my early love. Its pavements are rich in memories, its shop windows do not contain wares more precious than the emotions with which I survey this street fragrant with the essences of culture, and blooming with the flowers of a cultivation perfected by the grand march of majestic centuries."

6. Cormac Beirne
Newspapermen in the Maritime Provinces have been notified that they must make no reference to weather conditions, not even heat waves or cold snaps. If that prohibition extended to private individuals, what would they do for conversation?

7. Ben Chapman
He was gloomy and silent; she as airy and flippant as usual.
"I have had a lucky speculation in Angelicos," he said quietly when the servants had left the room.
"You don't look as if you had," she said, cracking a nut.
"And I hoped to give you a pleasant surprise," he added, "so I drove around to some of your people this afternoon to pay your bills."
She went white and nearly pinched a finger instead of a nut.

8. Adrian Wong
"Listen," said he, at last; "since anger has made me boast of what I can do, I will place at your disposal the power of which I, like a goose, have spoken. I have just returned from a journey which has fatigued me much, and it will cost me not little to be off again so soon; but it shall not be said that I have left you any longer at the mercy of barbarians. Come with me. I will conduct you to Grammarland. It is a country where little children can amuse themselves as well as elsewhere, when they enter it in the right way."

9. Wenying Wu
Canadians and Americans are getting to be a nation of mumblers. The reason, say the old timers, is that there is too little "reading out loud" in school today. Other maintain that the marbles-in-the-mouth speech, now so annoyingly common, is simply a reflection of the times. Life moves at a much faster pace than it did in grandfather's generation. There are so many things to be done, so much to be seen, little time left to practice diction. It may be that it is too late to do anything about the diction of adults, says the Halifax Mail-Star. But surely something can be done about the person who is genuinely enthusiastic and friendly in introducing two people but who spoils it all by mumbling: "Mr. Who-na-hoo may I introduce Mr. Whazzakam."

10. Milan Fernandez
During the dark days of the World war, H.L. Mencken felt the urge to dispel the gloom with a bit of humor. Accordingly, he wrote an imaginary story of the invention of the bathtub. As the Mencken fiction ran, it was the brainchild of one Adam Thompson of Cincinnati, incased in Nicaraguan mahogany, metal lined, and weighed 1,700 pounds. He invited guests to try the new experience. The daily papers reported the event and the "first bathtub" was denounced by doctors, ministers and public officials. Laws were passed to regulate its use and heavy taxes imposed.

11. Max Gedajlovic
A good military anecdote is told of General Decaen — the same who was engaged in the battle on the Moselle. He had observed that several men of his division were without guns and said they had lost them. This general came to the conclusion that some at least of the soldiers reasoned thus— "If I throw away my gun behind a hedge, and am found out, I shall get a year or two of imprisonment, but that is better than being shot." To counteract these cowardly tactics, General Decaen, who does not like courts-martials, issued an order of the day declaring that every soldier who lost his Chassepot would be sent to the front in action without arms, and would not get any till he helped himself from the enemy. Since this order no arms have been lost in this general's division.

12. Raymond Chen
"The trouble," George Thorvald went on with a faintly embarrassed air, "is that it is too much like taking candy from a baby. It's been a lot of fun for a while; but I have not the heart to let you go on with it... You aren't Camilla Wynne, you know."
For a moment, Constance sat speechless before the absurdity of the situation in which she found herself. Then, as the full irony of the denouement dawned upon her, she laughed until the tears came.

13. Mattias Ehatamm
"Paddy, do you know how to drive?" said a traveller to the "Phaeton" of a jaunting car. "Sure I do," was the answer, "was'nt it I who upset your honour in a ditch two years ago?"

14. Michael Du
It is not always in our power to avoid those things which hinder sleep, and above all it is only seldom that we can exercise complete control over our mental states. To do this requires either a good deal of stoicism, or an uncommon strength of will and power of self-government. It is said that Napoleon I could sleep at any time he chose, and did so even during the battle of Leipzic. He had the gift not only of controlling his feelings, but also of suspending thought at pleasure. That the last achievement is by no means an easy one almost everybody has experienced.

15. Parth Jagtap
A Happy whimsicality colored the recent ceremony at the Tower of London to honor an American hero, says The Christian Science Monitor. High-ranking officers of the United States and British Armies and Royal Air Force were present on historic Thames-side lawns to see "G.I. Joe", a United States Army pigeon, presented to the Constable of the Tower. He received the Dickin Medal for gallantry. This is the first time the medal, highest British award for animals and birds, has been awarded outside the United Kingdom.
"Well done, G.I. Joe!" a British general said as he hung a bronze medal with blue, chocolate, and green ribbon around the pigeon's neck.

16. Liam Kusalik
The most astounding ravages and destruction have been effected this season in the Mormon country by grasshoppers. The wheat crop has been extinguished by them, and a gentleman who has just returned from an excursion north, says the grasshoppers are pushing themselves out of the earth in immense numbers; and should the warm weather hasten their growth and their wings, so as to fly, the whole country may cry—"Wo be the land of their flight, and the day of their might."

17. Andrew McCowan
Two years ago, because my eldest son had read a book, "For Sinners Only", my wife and I came to a House Party. I came with a carefully planned retreat back to the office, if I did not like it. I stayed, and certain drastic decisions followed which shattered my sense of achievement and complacency. I was faced with reality, and realised that I had not begun to live.

18. Gaian Valdegamo
They say that the German army is turning to the Finnish sauna, or steam bath, to harden the soldiers for the expected winter in Russia and to fight lice. Finnish sauna builders have arrived at the Olympic Village in Berlin, now an army recreation ground, to teach the engineer battalions how to construct and operate the baths. Besides hardening the men for cold weather, spokesmen said they hoped the soldiers would more readily change their laundry and thus keep down the lice.

19. Nick Edwards
"General Eyre has offered a prize to the Montreal Snow-Ball Club, to be awarded to that member who shall fire the greatest number of snow-balls in a given time. There's intellectual amusement!" This is copied from a most respectable New York paper; but the sneer is in execrable taste. The object of the club is to promote health and strength; it is not intellectual, nor literary. For the information alike of him who mis-states, and him who mis-corrects, we may state that there is no such thing as a "snow-ball" club in Montreal. There are two snow-shoe clubs, which practice walking across country over the deep snow on the crust. If United States newspaper men were not densely ignorant of life in other portions of the continent, this explanation would be unnecessary.

20./21. Gabrielle Clark/Connor Haines
Mrs. Partington says she understands the pickle the Emperor has got into, but she would like to know what this neutrality is that Victoria is trying so hard to preserve.
~~~
The late Emperor of Russia sent a letter to the Duke of Devonshire, congratulating his Grace upon his recovery from his recent illness. The Duke thought it right to forward the letter to the Foreign Office in London, it being a communication from one of the Queen's enemies.

22. Kane Nguyen
The first thing you must understand about your car is that it does not belong exclusively to you. Unless you get this point straight you cannot be an intelligent driver. The legal concept of ownership is already out of date. And until every motorist gets it clearly through his head that his car is not entirely his own property, driving will continue to threaten his purse, his health, his sanity, and his life.

23. Albert Li
Curtains, like clothes, are being made on straight, simple lines. Windows are discarding their many flounces of slik petticoats that hide the view and keep out the air. They are wearing ruffled wash skirts of gingham, voile and muslin. That is the kind of curtains I would choose for your house.

24. David Snoddon
No longer can the popular conception of a billy goat be that of a straggly-haired, dirty, long-whiskered animal that spends its days nuzzling through garbage piles. The goat has become respectable. In fact, said Dr. J. L. Wright of the Memphis, Tennessee, Small Animal clinic, the goat has obtained such respectability that at least 100 home owners in Memphis keep one or more of them in backyards. Home owners in other cities also are becoming goat herdsmen, Dr. Wright revealed.

25. Yadu Kukenthiran
Miss Bridget O'More stalks into the room her face one great aggressive smile. As her face is about the broadest thing on record, as far as faces go, the smile passes all bounds. The smile of the famous Cheshire cat isn't in it, by comparison. Miss Bridget is tall, stout and vigorous. When she speaks she shouts. This latter delightful trait (that, as a rule, reduces the nervous stranger to the verge of lunacy) arises probably from the fact that she has insisted on getting her false teeth from the cheapest man in Dublin, and therefore unless she yells no one can understand her: there are times when she does not understand herself.

[Protean]

Looks like another year where I won't get the write-up in on time. For now in lieu of a proper one, then, for your consideration here is a list of people that I have ranked in some order on the ballot I submitted to Kevin.

Andrew McCowan
Milan Fernandez
David Snoddon
Wenying Wu
Liam Kusalik
Gabrielle Clark
Cormac Beirne
Parth Jagtap
Albert Li
Tony Chen
Mattias Ehatamm
Max Gedajlovic
Sky Li
Nicolas Edwards
Adrian Wong
Jay Misuk
Gaian Valdegamo
Raymond Chen
Kevin Fan
Michael Du
Connor Haines
Ian Chow
Sam Hauer
Benjamin Chapman

[CadenPetrosian]

1.Sky Li
You have no idea how much I wanted to be one of the cool kids ranking someone other than Sky at first. The stats tell a pretty compelling story though and every time I see Sky play, their buzzes just leave me in awe. Strong specialization within their generalist specialization. Their history buzzes are always impressive. In addition to being a top 1 player, Sky is also a top 5 CanQB Discord cat pfp haver.

2.Cormac Beirne
The driest wit in all of CanQB finds himself at second on my ballot. He may not be Andrej Vukovic but his Lawrence Alma-Tademas are far reaching and his Carlos Drummond de Andrades may be the most lethal intangibles known this side of the Atlantic.

3.Ian Chow
IAN!! I had Ian at first for quite a while. The most terrifying thing about Ian isn’t that he can buzz pretty much anywhere in the distro but rather that his keyboard and microphone respond only to the demands of supernatural forces beyond the living (Rathburn, 2023). Honestly, Ian’s the lit player that most intimidates me on the circuit and that’s probably his weakest category of the big 3. Looking forward to following the Western chapter of his QB career.

4.Tony Chen
Tony’s a beast. There’s just no getting around it. When Tony’s on a roll, not even ARCADIA’s Prelims Toronto Lucina can stop him (with the help of Yadu of course). When adjusting for the beastness under the curve, I also find marmots to be goated.

5.Gareth Thorlakson
The only player on this list whose veins pump red, blue, and white. When he’s not terrorizing Americans by out-Americaning them on Nats questions he can be found swiping bouncebacks off any unfortunate teammate like The Great Train Robbery. Underrated bonus game when he's playing by himself.

6.Wenying Wu
Lit crit Wu, as they call her in the 6ix, is a beast. Highly acclaimed tomato poet and extraterrestrial-Melusina-cyberspace-garbageasmetaphor-experimentalanime-essayist. A trendsetter in the circuit and a ridiculous lit specialist with early buzzes whenever she feels like it.

7.Ben Chapman
Ben’s pretty good. He hears clues and then buzzes and is correct an amount of times which may or may not be the same as the amount of times he is not.

8.Adrian Wong
My impression of Adrian is that he’s the platonic ideal of the generalist. Can buzz on pretty much any category and is excellent at the history/lit stretch. Likes jazz and film. Very cool.

9.Kevin Fan
I only saw Kevin play at EV but his buzzes were pretty sick. I hope one day he and Henry can teach me more about these Argentinian scuffles with European powers which my books seem to not care about at all. It’s very likely his lit has gotten stronger as well but I have no clue.

10.Milan Fernandez
Oh hey that's me!

11.Sam Hauer
Sam's history/AFA/Philosophy combo has only gotten stronger this year and those law buzzes are a sight to behold (moiety). Along with Max, Sam is one of those humanities players that every so often will make me want to cheer loudly for absolutely wrecking the scientists on a pack. It's been pretty sick getting to play with Sam in the post-Toronto Dentao world even after we both left Toronto. I wish him nothing but great luck wherever life takes him now that he's finished with school.

12.Raymond Chen
Raymond has probably become the most well rounded lit player on the circuit. I would definitely bet on him to pull any lit question by the end even at the highest difficulties. This isn’t to say he doesn’t have any deep knowledge, because he certainly does and will squash you on any Ishiguro or Auden question, but only that he makes far less silly mistakes than the rest of us - except for that moment at CMST where he and Henry discovered a way to do whatever the opposite of communicating is. Apparently his bio’s gotten even better too but my feeble chem player brain doesn’t equip me to understand that growth.

13.Max Gedajlovic
Max may claim he’s washed but I still can’t picture anyone taking questions on those boring 19th century American short fiction writers off him. Furthermore, he continues to be proficient at goading science players into negging against him which will always be amongst the most valuable skills in this game.

14.Andrew McCowan
The CN writing team MVP has become a pretty dependable generalist. I’m not sure I actually got to play him this year but reading C++ for him was enough to confirm what I assumed to be true from the breadth of his writing.

15.Jay Misuk
I didn’t get to see Jay play at all but judging from the stats and Tony’s evaluation, it seems he remains a cracked geo player but his generalism has been surpassed by many of the players above him.

16.Mattias Ehatamm
My congrats go out to the Waterloo team once again and Mati had a particularly crazy performance there but tbh I was probably even more impressed by how he top scored the lit at Regs. The swiftness of his improvement was balanced out by the slowness of the car in front of us.

17.Liam Kusalik
Science knower. Very pleasant. Is tall and appropriately knows many tall landforms from Western Canada and New Zealand.

18.Parth Jagtap
Really honed his craft as a humanities generalist this year. He’s a beast on all that NAQT stuff and is a fellow idiosyncratic 2010s film score enjoyer.

19.Michael Du

Zzzzzzzbuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

20.Nick Edwards
Solid history based generalist with many random pockets of knowledge scattered throughout the distro pretty evenly. Sort of like Ian Chow’s knowledge base if the science was replaced with the acting filmography of everyone from Amy Adams to Zach McGowan.

21.Albert Li
The 2022 Nats practice anecdote mentioned by Sky speaks for itself and the artle + vfa carding sessions seem to be really paying their dividends.

22.Gaian Valdegamo
VFA superspecialist, ICT champion, Geoguessr pro, Maximum the Hormone listener. A real specialist of all trades.

23.Caleb Ott
The archetypal Lit/FA player. However, where many of those types of players fall short, only to spend the years wondering where they missed a step, is in forgetting to learn all the Palme D’or winners. Caleb did not forget this step and is well on his way to glory undoubtedly.

24.Yadu Kukenthiran
He’s got some of the craziest personal anecdotes in the circuit. This microhistory specialization complements his macrohistory specialization quite well.

25.David Snoddon
Friendly neighbourhood lit based generalist. It’s a shame I only really saw him at ARCADIA and Winter but he’s still got it. Effectively channels the clown mission statement of brightening people’s day with his positive vibes in both the CanQB and UofTQB servers. I hope I get to see him more at summer tournaments.

26.Connor Haines
Impressive stats at Regs plus that Armenian music buzz was nuts.

EDIT: Sorry Connor. I somehow forgot Sam.

[Liarr]

Unlike some other ballots I could name, this one was written without the aid of algorithms, equations, or even statistics. In fact, after consulting with numerous experts in linguistics and literary theory, I have decided to remove all references to number from this ballot, with the sadly unavoidable exceptions of zero, one, and many, and negations thereof. This one comes straight from the heart, burst free of the iron cage of rationality within which player poll discourse has been encased for too long. I should mention at the outset that I have not paid particular attention to the Canadian circuit in many years, so I apologize if any factual errors are present; regardless, I believe the emotional and deeper thematic truth of this write-up will shine through.

Tony Chen

While some of us have had the audacity to rank Tony not-first, I, as always, am with him through thick and thin. Tony has been battling the infernal machine that is Toronto for many years, and beaten them more often than not, probably. Despite facing criticism from all sides this year, Tony suffered in silence and simply proved his haters wrong at the buzzer, every time. Simply put, Tony is the junglers' jungler, and London will miss him immeasurably. In a pragmatic and intelligent move, Tony is transferring to Toronto next year. To prepare, he has decided to read the entire Lotus Sutra in, and I quote, "every language". When he does this, Tony will gain access to the Akashic Records, and will thereby have knowledge of every event in all of human history, past and present. He will use this power to lead Toronto A to lower top bracket at ACF Nationals.

Skylie Jenner

After humiliating Derek So and Henry Atkins at Penn Bowl, Sky Li used their newfound status and respect within Toronto quizbowl to take revenge on all those who had insulted and gaslit them over the past decade, thus easily earning their spot on this ballot. Since then, Raymond Chen has been a shell of his former self, and did not perform sufficiently well to make it on here.

3

sp; darl pitdoder. L8a!

Cormac Rathbeirne

One of the most level-headed, down to earth people I know, despite his tolerance for Academic art. It's not 1853 anymore, Cormac!
g*r*th can go here I guess
Ben Chapman

Good homer, also good science, music, and thought. I will never emotionally recover from the abominations Ben has introduced into our culture of reacts. We are not relieved!

Milan Fernandez

Milan is a legend, leading Niagara College in mirrors of just about every multiple dot closed set. Milan is excellent at quizbowl despite the immeasurable disadvantage of primarily learning about subjects he is genuinely interested in, particularly the most based subsets of the literature, other fine arts, and history distributions. We will miss him as he departs the parochial sphere of quizbowl for a professional carding career.

Jim Fan

Jim has had a great year, leading UNC to several excellent tournament results and providing great support to Vincent Du at ACF Nationals.

Wenying Wu

Wenying Wu. Literature, buzzes, halibut, tomato, etc.

Adrian Wong

The Richard Rapport of Canadian quizbowl.

Max's Max

I'm tired of Ontarians and other easterners calling themselves Max Gedajlovic fans. They will never know what it's like to be alienated. To be an International Master. To have a garage. To be Italian. He belongs to us.

Sam Hauer

In honour of Sam and our graduations, I have resolved to attempt silly accents in all my future competitive endeavours. You've been a wonderful teammate over the centuries, Sam.

The K

After much hype, the K delivered this year by supporting Tony and Western to numerous tournament victories and groundbreaking performances at ICT and ACF Nationals.

Raymond Wang

Impressive performances at both nationals including an ICT title from Raymond are sadly not enough to put him in the true elite of Canadian players. Just goes to show how strong the circuit is this year.

Mattias Ehatamm

Easily my favourite late medieval leader, creating one of the first modern armies and actually managing to take Vienna at one point. This year he built upon those accomplishments by brutally sacking and pillaging America's finest higher education centres.

Liam Kusalik

Top 1 science player.

Parth Jagtap

Capable, smart, and determined.

Michael Du

Y̴̧̡̡̢̢̛̛̼̫͙̬̘̘̘̩̞͕̼̙̗͎̪͙̬̘͓̲̘̮̣͎̘̗͙̱̜̖̺̠͙͐̊͒̓̿͒̃͌͋͗̔̈̏̍͐̏̆̏̀̀̀͐̊̀̓̇̏͐̔̐̓̅̄̃̎̈́̚͜͜͝͠͝͠ͅo̵̢͖̩̰̲͚̜͈͙̘͍͖͚̯͚͈̦̱̱̝̙͚͕͇̤̜̝͍̠̯̤̤̼̞͉̝͌̿̅̔̽͆̅͊͂͑̿́͊̈́̓̏̉͑͊̈͒̋́̿̆͗̉͐͌̂́̈́̒̈́̐͜͜͝ͅͅṷ̶͆́̎́̄̀̌̈͛͂͒̾̈̅̇̉̏̍̄̔̌̃̓̍̾̃͆͐̌̋̍̐̌́̑̃̕̕͘͘͝͝͝͝͠͝͠ ̸̡̧̯̯̹̗̯̗͌̏͆͊̈͊̓̐̿͆͌́̀́́͛̑̿͆̆̓̌̆̉̐̅͗̅̓͊̿̉͗̂͆͌̒̚̚̚͘͘͠͝͝w̶̨̨̢̢̛̜̘̺̻̮͈̞̗̫̹͖̳̘̝͙̩̱̼̤͓̠̦̭̠̲͙̟̦̮̥̘͎̱̙̯̲͉̪̟̙͎̳̑͋͛̏͗̿̐́͐͒̑̂́̋̄̒̈́̈͆̀̓̚͜͝͠ͅͅi̴̗̓͑͑͋̈̀́̄͊̂̆̓̈́̇̈͒̿͗̄̂̾͝ĺ̶̛̠͉̂̆̌̈́̓̔̿̇̾̎̽͛̽̏͛̈́͗̊̇̋́͌̏̅̓̍̐̅̈́̆́́̌̎̐̂͊̕͝ḽ̵̨̢̨̗̥̫͇̞̳̙̲͔̞̘̻̻̗̘͓̱̺̺̥̭͕͚̩̱͍̮͖̬̣̭̫͔̙̩͇̮̦̳̬̪̮͛̆̌̀́̀̃̈́̓̽̋͛̉̏̾̀̎̈́̔͒͆̉̚͜͝ͅ ̸̧̧̛̩͔͖̺̦̟̭͕̻͈̺̯͔̭͔͈̰̼̗̥̠̞̮͎̬̖̩̪͓͉̤͙̊͐͋̅̐͌̈́̽͌̓̍̅͌̆̋̈́̄͐̈̍̅̊͊̾̈̀̾͑͂̓̕̕̕͜͜b̵̨̛̛͚̟̭̻͉̼̱̯̥̘̯̟̬̹͙͉̠͖̫̟̭̼͕͚͔̰͚͓̯͔̞̘̩͓̯̘͎͚͕̟͎̮̻͔̫͔̂̐̊̈͑̔́̋̑͒̉̑̒͑͒̒̔́͗̇̄̆̇̈́̔̿̋́͗̽͌͑̅́̊̀̾͒̃̀͋̍͋̃̀̚͜͠͝ͅͅę̵̹̮̦̦̫̠͔̱̭̲͕̳͚̩͓̙̘͇̝̓̑͂̒͆͊͒̅͒̊͛͘̕͝͠ͅͅ ̷̨̡̡̨̛̩͕͔̤͓̠͉̰̯̀̓̀̇͆̍̋͗̀̑̓̇̈́̄̍̉́́̌̌̀̊̍͋̽͑́̀̄͂̀̉̄̈́͂̑̏̓̚̚͝r̷̡̬̜̜̰̲̻̬̫̟̹̱̼̱̖̭͉̜͔͖̦̦͍̜͎̗̼̞͚͊̊̋̓̄̊è̵̹̲̰͔͈̙͓̼̦̞̯̗͚̹̰̺̹͆̄̈́͒̈́̓̿̐̾͋̏̏̈́̈́̋̚͘͝c̴̡̢̧̢̨̛͙̫̟̹͔̜̳̳̫͎̜̟̹̗̜̻̖̝̘͇̜͎̫͓͍̯̻͇̞̳̜̖̗̤̬̭̙͉͚̹͂̂̈̽̀̔̈́̈̓͗͛̑̓̈́̄̓̅̂̌̈͗͑̔͑̒̉̈́̉̔̑́͗͋̏̕̚͘͜͠͝͝͝ơ̸͚̦̞̤͈̖̦̈́́́̂͐̈́̐͐͛́́̌͊̐̄̂̾̊́͒͂͆̕̕͝͠g̶̛̛̪͚̦̒̊̊̈́͛̍̏̽̒͐̿͋̑͒̈́̊͒͌͌̆̈͑͂̀̾̾́̏̾̈̓͘͠͠͝͠͠ň̵̠̼̙̼́̊̿͆̃̀̄̐͊͌͑̈́̓̐͗̾̒̂̾͋̆͛̔̊̋́͌̑͛̈̑͑͂͑̈́̅͛̉͗̈́̕̕͘͠͠͝͝͝i̶̻̭̙̿̈́̈̈́̄̄̓̔̈̕̚ẑ̵̨̢̡̡̧̛̛͍̮͔̱̝͍̩̣̤͙̥̹̬͓̬͈̞̰͔̲̖͕̜͓̬̣̘͇͍̼͚͓̞̭̗̮̺̅̊̐̏͋̿̃͘̕͝͠͝ͅę̵̮̣̬̱͓̻̖̹̣͙͔͎͇͎̥͓͙̳̝̦͙͓͈̹̾͌̅̉̀̽̈̑͋̂̉̾̾͗͊̌̍̇̑̌̓̑̀̎͌̀̃̔͂̔͗̾͋̎́̎͒̏̋̕͜͝͝͝d̸̛͔̀̋͛̈͐͐̄̃̍̍̊̀͒̉̌̊̐͗̈̌͒̇͐͒͒̿̒́͊́̉͗̂̌̓͐̂̾̚͘̕͝͝ ̶̡̢̨̢̡̡̠̘̘͚̗̣͇̝̹͓͉̱̣̱͖̬̥͓͖̦͎̦̩̰̼̯̠͚̺̼̫̖͚̻̬̳͖̜͍̃̇̋͌̈́̋̐̐̍̃́͛̀͌͌͛̀̋̂̔̿̅̆̀͌̊͐̈́̆̐̀̽̅̇͛͊̚̕̚̕̚͝f̴̢̧̨̭͔̰̰̻͈̭͎̼͈̖͍̭̬͚͖͉͍̘͖̟̥̝̜̖̬͈͇̫̼̦̺̱̹̹̯̜̟͙̤̬̭̘̫̻̒̓́̓̋̄̾̿͗̓̍̽͗̋̋̅̈́̋͐̓̍̎̉͊̀͛̽̾͘̚̕͜ȏ̷̩͇̃̐̀͋̽̈́̑̽̐̂̏̓̍̑̎͂̐̒̀̽̕̚̕͘͠͝͠͝r̸̝̜̞͈̬̠̪͎͇̟̎̾́͆̎̅̍̐̀͌͛̍́̒̕͝ ̸̨̡̧̡̗̘̼͚͇͚͓͙̼̟̯̞͙̘͈͕̗̃͋͋̽̀̾͂̏͌̄̆̆͜͠ỵ̸̧̛̛̻̥̭͙͎̠̻͕͖̯͔̦̮̘͖̩̱͇̲̝̤͔̝̯̪̪̉͊̀̈́̔͑̔͌̾̈͆̌̄̌̿̉͗͋͘͝͝ͅǫ̸̡̡̧͙̥̮͎̘͖̘̤̱̣̠͓̼̭̥̠͕̖̥̮͍̯̝͙̤̞̩͇̟̜̩̱̬̯͙̝̲̺͛̽̉̅̂̇̆̉͜͜ȕ̸̡̨̙͓̲̖̠̞̞͙̣̟̩̦͙͇̭͓͔̜̲̻̩̗͖̞̙̺̘̥̦̙̠̲͙̖̟̱̫̳̠̆̑̽͂̇̓͐͊͆͒̋̏͐̿͊̎̈͘͜͠ͅr̴̝͋́̔̆̋̇̈̓̀̀̉͒̓͌̈́̒̽̏̓̾̀̊͌̀̋̈́̿̎͑́͛̋͑͐̔͌̕̕̕͝͝͝͝ ̸̢̛̛̛̫̞̙̦̼͈̟͍̻̬͈̯͍̹̥͔̏̄́̊̀͛̅̔̀̎̒̏̄̌͊́̎̏͊̉̒̋̾̀̋̉̃͊̉́̓́̀̆͛̓̈́̀̈́̃̉͐̚͘̕͝ͅa̴̛͉͔̻̬̥̣̿̊̐̈̒̽̽̆͗̄́͊͆́̑̈́̈́͒̈͛̄́̂͒͆̀̅͘̕͘͝͝c̷̤̔̀́͑̍̀̌̈́͑̄̍͊̅̀̆̊͝͝͝ç̷̢͓̝͕̩̠̭̟͉͇̬̣̤̫̈́͂͜͝ơ̶̧̡̡̧̧͕̩͍̥̖̩͍͓̳̬̫͍̖̳͈̦͔̤̯̣̠̯͖͈̻̝̟̫̩̖̜̟̖͍̩̜͚̫̜͉̗͍̘̂̿͋͗̉̈́̄̄͆̈́̈́͆͋̈́̒̆́̑́̂̄̄̃̐͐̏̓̐͂̈́̄̒̚͜͜͝͝͝͠m̴̢̨̧̨̢̧̛̬̻͎̠̟̰͕̬̦̹̗̬͉̰͔̦͚̰͖̼̥̤̘͎͖̞̩͚̗̫̝͎̦̻̄͑́̍̑́̾̋͛̔̐̌̏̎̔͊́̈́̒͊̈̄̄̓̓̉́̐̓͘͝͠p̶͉̐͗̾͗̏͊̏̓̎͆̇̉͋̈́̓͛̕͠l̴̢̨̧̡̛̼̭͚̥͔̠̤̳̫̤̪̙͖̫̱̯̞̞͕̖̻̞̺̗̠͉͈͔̪̯̙̻̹͕̜̖̬̮͖͖̮̘͆̇̑͊̔̏͑̎͐̾̇̐̓̈́̇̇̕͜͠͝ͅi̴͔̘̱͙̟̻̩̩͕͙̻̘̱͎̱͚̼̺̖͔͉̤͉̰͙͚̘̟̬̾͗̏͐͌̐́̆̑̉̃͗̊͛̃́̾́̍̈̉͂̽͗̓̽̆͗͋͐̓͌͆͊͆̿̓̈̕̚͜͝͝s̶̙̹͓̻͈̖̝̑͋̈́̉͑͋͋̀͐̉͊̆͛̅̃̒͌́̈́̅͗͊̂̈́͆̕̚͠͠͝h̷̡̧̡̡̧̳͉͔̩͖̥͓͎͉̙͙̜͔̗̪̝͙̔̈̈́̀͆̈̇̉̀̐͂͐̽̇͗̒̌̀̓͆̅͒m̵̢̡̡̢̢̦̗̩̩̠͕̗̪̯̹̗̫̱̥̜̤͚̤̖͙̮̯̰̻̰̬̫̗͚̠̖͖͈̻̮̈́̄͊̏͒́̂̅́̇͊̿̓̌̀̇͛́͛͒͂̿̃̉͌̾̓̒̔̈́̂̽̎́̈́̒̎̓̀̈́̐͘͘͘̕̕͝e̶̬̠̗̤̩̤̖̤͇̼͙̫͔̟̗̮͇̳̩͕̼͖̯͉̭̖͔͒̀̌n̴̢̩̺̬̯͎̪̻̪̱̟̼̬̅́͒̅͗̽͆̌̈́̈́͋͛̅́͊͝t̷̢̡̢̠̹̳̠̱̯̘̬̻͙̥̝͖̮̝͒̎̇̓̓͑̌̋̑̂̒̉̋̒͑̀̆̽͊͂̈́̂̓̎̔͒͗̓̀͊̑͊̃͗̋̕͘͜͠͠͝͝͝s̸̢̧̡̢͈͕͍̫̜̫̩͉̥̹̭̝͓̯͙͉̩͉͔̝̦̬̫͔͓͓̪͔̖̱͎̥̟̲̠̣͓͎͖͉̺̅̋̾̇̂̌͆̈́͆̿̈́̔̓̑̑͒̔̀̉̌͑̈́̄͊̄͒͐̌̇̊̒̈́͗̉͐̾̽̈́̽̚͘̕͝͝ͅ.̸̛̤͔̙̝̬͎̬̗̺̠̟̃̀̆̈́̊̈́͂̐̑͑̊̒̉̾̈́̔̓̌̓̈́̓̔̍̄́̆͆̆̾̀̃̋̿͑̽͊̉͘̕̕̚͘͝͝͝͝




Yadu Kukenthiran

Arguably has the best online presence of anyone on this list, maybe even better than the GOAT Tony Chen. Plays quizbowl at forbidden hours.

Andrew McCowan

Still the top 1 Glebe player in the circuit, despite fierce competition. Something something Queen's Activated Toronto Overrated? outdated?

Nicolas Edwards

Genius in the grass, but also in the zoom and on the buzzer.

David Snoddon

Calls everyone the GOAT, and has thus been accused by some of debasing the term's inherent value. To which I respond that economics isn't real and David is. You're the GOAT, David.

John Chen

John Chen came out of nowhere last month to become the music/thought/history/misc player we needed, with great performances against Stanford at Penn Bowl and in a supporting role to Max at the Undergraduate Championship.

Albert Li

"Great, I'm out with friends and I just said, "Albert is such a beast, I'm a big Albert fan." I think I might have a problem." - Max Gedajlovic

Kane Nguyen

In a stroke of genius, someone upthread called Kane "the quizbowl player in my mind", and I don't think I've ever heard a more perfect description of what Kane means to all of us.

I would also like to mention all of the people who have joined UBC quizbowl in the past few weeks and helped keep it running and inviting while us old dunderheads stayed home and gossiped on discord. In particular: Joyce Xi, Alyssa Parker, Russell Nip and Fardad Asghari Zadeh.

[IncompetentIdiot]

Thank you to all our voters. With unprecedented ballot stuffing and unprecedented division, we once again reached record turnouts in both polls. Without further ado, here are the results.

Main Poll (27 Ballots)
1. Sky Li, 651 (median 2, max 1, min 6; 13 first-place votes)
2. Tony Chen, 638 (median 2, max 1, min 7; 7 first-place votes)
3. Ian Chow, 607 (median 4, max 1, min 6; 5 first-place votes)
4. Kevin Fan, 566 (median 5, max 1, min 9; 1 first-place vote)
5. Gareth Thorlakson, 565 (median 5, max 1, min 8; 1 first-place vote)
6. Cormac Beirne, 559 (median 6, max 2, min 9)
7. Ben Chapman, 544 (median 6, max 2, min 9)
8. Milan Fernandez, 476 (median 9, max 3, min 13)
9. Adrian Wong, 467 (median 8, max 6, min 11)
10. Wenying Wu, 411 (median 10, max 4, min 14)
11. Max Gedajlovic, 396 (median 11, max 8, min 13)
12. Jay Misuk, 351 (median 12, max 9, min NR)
13. Raymond Chen, 347 (median 14, max 8, min 18)
14. Mattias Ehatamm, 332 (median 14, max 10, min 16)
15. Sam Hauer, 327 (median 14, max 11, min NR)
16. Parth Jagtap, 249 (median 17, max 15, min 20)
17. Liam Kusalik, 241 (median 17, max 15, min 21)
18. Michael Du, 227 (median 18, max 14, min 20)
19. Andrew McCowan, 204 (median 19, max 11, min 25)
20. Gaian Valdegamo, 123 (median 20, max 18, min NR)
21. Nicolas Edwards, 110 (median 21, max 19, min NR)
22. Albert Li, 77 (median 23, max 20, min NR)
23. Kane Nguyen, 65 (median 25, max 12, min NR)
24. Gabrielle Clark, 59 (median 24, max 20, min NR)
25. Connor Haines, 56 (median 24, max 21, min NR)
RV: Caleb Ott, 41; Yadu Kukenthiran, 40; David Snoddon, 33; James Ah Yong, 3; John Chen, 3; Jacob Garofalo, 2; Max Chemtov, 2; Micah Colman, 1; Elena Bai, 1; Angus Paterson, 1

Rookie Poll (12 Ballots)
1. Mattias Ehatamm, 120 (median 1, max 1, min 1; 12 first-place votes)
2. Michael Du, 108 (median 2, max 2, min 2)
3. Caleb Ott, 95 (median 3, max 3, min 4)
4. Micah Colman, 79 (median 4, max 4, min 6)
5. Max Chemtov, 59 (median 6, max 3, min NR)
6. Isaac Thangaraj, 58 (median 6, max 5, min NR)
7. Jacob Garofalo, 55 (median 6.5, max 4, min 8)
8. Adil Haider, 19 (median NR, max 5, min NR)
9. Kevin Anderson, 15 (median 10, max 8, min NR)
10. James Wang, 14 (median NR, max 7, min NR)
RV: Ben Wismath, 10; Henry Olsen, 6; Max Gross, 6; Liz Van Oorschot, 5; Daniel Vorotyntsev, 5; Maude-Sophie Lockman, 3; Sarah Khan, 3

Full results for both polls are available here. You will not see me next year, but God willing, this poll will outlive me, accompanied by your participation in it.

[skewit]

2. Tony Chen.
[...]
7. Ben Chapman.

2. Tony Chen (Western)
[...]
3. Ben Chapman (Toronto)

2. Tony Chen (SF/PF, Western)
[...]
7. Ben Chapman (PF/C, Toronto)

#2 Tony Chen
[...]
#4 Ben Chapman

4. Tony Chen
[...]
8. Ben Chapman

5. Tony Chen, Western. (Flandre, TH6)
[...]
6. Ben Chapman, Toronto. (Okazaki Yumemi, TH3)

1. Tony Chen
[...]
4. Benjamin Chapman

1. Tony Chen (Western)
[...]
9. Ben Chapman (Toronto)

3. Tony
[...]
5. Ben

1. Tony Chen
[...]
7. Benjamin Chapman

2. Tony Chen (Western University)
[...]
6. Benjamin Chapman (University of Toronto)

1. Tony Chen (Western)
[...]
9. Ben Chapman (Toronto)

3. Tony Chen - Western
[...]
7. Ben Chapman - Toronto

2. Tony Chen (Western; Serra)
[...]
5. Benjamin Chapman (Toronto; Kent)

3. Tony Chen
[...]
7. Ben Chapman

1. Tony Chen
[...]
3. Ben Chapman

2. Tony Chen
[...]
4. Ben Chapman

2. Tony Chen
[...]
5. Benjamin Chapman

2. Tony Chen
[...]
4. Ben Chapman

3. Tony Chen
[...]
7. Ben Chapman

Tony Chen
[...]
Benjamin Chapman

4. Tony Chen
[...]
7. Ben Chapman

Tony Chen
[...]
Ben Chapman

2. Tony Chen, 638 (median 2, max 1, min 7; 7 first-place votes)
[...]
7. Ben Chapman, 544 (median 6, max 2, min 9)

lmao WHAT????