By: Derek Hottenstein
There’s nothing trivial regarding the annual SNC Honors Program Trivia Night. The stakes are high, the pressure is intense, and the game takes no prisoners. Luckily, we had more than enough eager players up to the challenge on the night of March 13th at 7 pm. There were 9 teams (with a maximum of six players per team), 3 rounds, and 10 questions per round, each corresponding to one of ten specific categories. The teams included The Dangling Prepositions, Earl and the Eskimos, Boar Enthusiasts, and The Holiday Armadillos, to name a few. My team, AI (Average Intelligence), was positioned at a table towards the front of the room, which, consequently, put us front and center right next to Dr. Lynch, our host for the evening and the Dean of Social and Natural Sciences. With the scene set and our brains fueled by the table of free snacks and soda, Dr. Lynch announced the question categories that we’d be combating for the evening.
For those of us expecting the typical Science, History, and Geography style questions, we were immediately given quite the rude awakening. What we got instead were categories just as thought-provoking as the questions themselves. Giants, Influencers, Third in a List, Weird Squares, Famous Landmarks, Movie Soundtracks, Old Men on a Boat, Sea Creatures, Things Named After Things Named After Other Things, and Perfumes. As unusual as those categories sound, everyone seemed to catch on pretty quickly. As Round 1 began, some of the questions were extremely easy. For instance, the “Movie Soundtracks” question that was “What animated Disney movie includes the song Circle of Life?” (The Lion King), and the “Landmarks” question that was “What United States National Park is known for its geothermal features and the Old Faithful geyser?” (Yellowstone). But, for every one of those types of questions, we were met with “Who was the third oldest American president when he took office?” (Ronald Reagan) and “What was Marilyn Monroe’s favorite perfume brand?” (Chanel #5). We were always left on our toes regarding the difficulty the next question would have in store.
At the end of Round 1, we gave our answer sheet to the team at the table next to ours and vice versa. Dr. Lynch announced all the correct answers as we graded the other team’s responses and kept our fingers crossed that we did well on our own. And indeed we did, as did everybody else. Each team went into Round 2 within a one-point difference of each other. The pressure was well and truly on. With more pressure came more challenging questions. Sure, there were still one or two freebies like “What Celine Dion song is the love theme of the movie Titanic?” (My Heart Will Go On), but for the most part, the questions were incredibly tricky. We were hit with “What square is used in construction to measure right angles?” (A carpenter’s square), “What’s the name of a common herb named after a fictional character named after a French village?” (Terragon), and “What state has the three largest cities by land area?” (It’s not Texas, it’s Alaska). We were all struggling with this round to varying degrees, and after grading, every team went into the third and final round within two points of each other.
To make things even more interesting, Round 3 was worth double points for every question. Yes, it all came down to this. Interestingly enough, Round 3’s questions were noticeably easier than Round 2’s. We alternated between tricky ones like “Who’s the third most leading scorer in NBA history?” (Karl Malone), alongside ones such as “Who is the singer of the hit song Hot To Go?” (Chappel Roan) and “Which fish can inflate itself?” (The pufferfish). But you won’t find anyone complaining about that. Because, before we knew it, the game was over and it was time to figure out who’d be crowned the victor. We added up all our points from all three rounds, turned them in to Dr. Lynch, and waited with bated breath to find out the final results.
As it turned out, my team tied for third place with Earl and the Eskimos, with both of our groups ending with 31 points. Second place went to Jetpunk Jocks with 33 points. The Saint Norbert College Honors Program Trivia Night Champions were The Dangling Prepositions, with 34 points. When all was said and done, it was an extremely fun night for everybody, and I already can’t wait for next year.
