The timing of Saturday’s “Fastest Two Minutes in Sports” couldn’t have worked out any better.  The horses were crossing the finish line just as we got our Saturday night games underway.  Sunday also provided two competitive games, but which teams rose to the top of the leaderboard?

WEEKEND STATS AND FACTS (35 teams across four venues):

–> Highest Overall Score: Boh’s and Hoes (Captain Benders) with 161

–> Highest Score after Round 4: Uncle Jack (Belles’) with 154

–> Highest First Half Score: Boh’s and Hoes with 87

–> Perfect 21 (correct on all wagering questions and final): NONE

–> Combining both nights of trivia, the halftime pages played to a slightly difficult average of 14.5, with only one team (Smartinis at Belles’) able to score a perfect 20 points.

–> About 15% earned six points on our 6-4-2 questions, which respectively dealt with Kit Kat bars and the Nickelodeon TV show “Doug”.

SATURDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (22.7% success rate):

–>James Darrell Edwards III and Kevin Brown are the two lead characters in which 1997 film?

SUNDAY’S FINAL QUESTION (66.7% success rate):

–> Sporting the body of a kangaroo, the head of a goat, the wings of a bat, and a forked tail, this mythical creature is said to live an area known as the ‘Pine Barrens’.  Since 1982, this creature has been the namesake for which major professional sports franchise? (you’ll find the answers later in this blog)

_________________________________________________________________

Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, MD

We had ourselves a fantastic game of trivia here at Belles’ Sports Bar in Frederick, as twelve teams came out to watch the Derby and then roll right into some competitive trivia.  Our first category stumped a number of teams, but then the 80’s musical film “Xanadu” is a cult classic and although entertaining, certainly it was not anything Oscar worthy.  We followed up that question with breakfast staple that also goes well with shrimp, a lost “city of gold”, and our own Baltimore native spy/action author Tom Clancy.  We also delved into three words that “happily” featured double PPs, including the painting style of master artist Jackson Pollock.

Round two’s audio clue included three songs with a reference to a measure of time in the title, and was followed up Cy Young award winning pitcher Max Scherzer.  Folks “cleaned up” with a question about Swiffer, and did fairly well with a rather poisonous element that can be quite nasty in your water supply.  You may be thinking lead or mercury, try again.  Lastly teams did well identifying this gal, who has gone through a great many owners over the course of her TV run.  I never knew that dog was this skilled however.

Speaking of hairy faces, our first category of the second half was Michael J. Fox as a basketball playing teen wolfman, which featured Jason Bateman in the role for the “ehh” sequel.  We had a “pointed” question about Shakespearean tragedies and Marc Antony’s huge beef with Julius Caesar.  We also found out the air we pretty much do everything in is called the “troposphere”, which is essential for both yodeling, and hearing someone yodel.  We ended the round by going “down under” to this Australian state and home to this Bugs Bunny adversary.

The fourth and final round was a bit rough, with teams not doing well with the Alternative duo The Black Keys, and the birthplaces of Vijay Singh and Martina Navratilova. They bounced back however on the wooden supports that basically hold up your walls, and the wonderful work the USO has done to help take care of our troops.  The only other struggle in round was this successful video game franchise that was turned into a rather unsuccessful Mark Wahlberg film.

The final was GREAT, and it really affected the game’s end as our third place team came from nearly nowhere to score a prize with a correct final answer.  Give it up for our second place team as well, as they were also the only other team to answer correctly.  Here are the results:

First Place:  Uncle Jack

Second Place:  Smarty Pants

Third Place:  Team W

You’ll have a guest host next week as I am out of town. Your first category will be 1990’s Science Fiction Movies.

~ Ronnie

_________________________________________________________________

Pretzel and Pizza Creations in Hagerstown, MD

We hosted a packed house for trivia on Saturday night at Pretzel & Pizza Creations!  The turnout has been great here lately and we even saw a couple teams that haven’t been in for a while stop in.  All in all, we topped ten teams on Saturday night, so I was definitely expecting a hard-fought game.  The first half was slightly tougher than normal, as only one team topped 80 points at the break.  Give Us Your Beer Money notched 82, while five other teams sat within ten points of the lead.

The third round began with a category that most teams jumped all over for their potential five-point bonus: films of the 1980s.  But only half of our teams were able to surmise the correct answer of “Teen Wolf”, one of which was our first-place team, who also lost their five point bonus (and the lead).  After that crucial miss, Give Us Your Beer Money played flawlessly to close the game, finishing the final round back in the lead.

Only two teams answered the final correctly (“here come the Men in Black…”), so just as the top three teams had been changing after each round, there was one more shuffle when the dust cleared.  Here is our how our final standings looked tonight:  Holding on to the third place spot was Arrondisements of Ouagadougou (I’m pretty sure that I’m still murdering this name).  Moving up two spots into second place was Sanford and Son, and moving into first place during the final round to hang on for the win was Give Us Your Beer Money!

Our winners have chosen Lighthouses of the Chesapeake Bay for next week’s first category, so study up and come join us for a great game at Pretzel & Pizza Creations on Saturday!

~ Jon J

_________________________________________________________________

Captain Benders Tavern in Sharpsburg, MD

We had a packed house tonight for our Sunday game of Pour House Trivia at Captain Benders in Sharpsburg! Two brand new teams in the house and a few faces back from hiatus made for a roaring good time.  We started the night with a lyrical tongue twister in the form of Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire,’ and finished the first round with a little classic Three Clues / One Word.

To kick off Round 2, we threw some anatomical audio your way a la Talking Heads and Smash Mouth, and ending things on a more academic note by exploring some literary characters.  Then came the half time puzzle page, which was top-heavy with some black and white photos and a few 7-letter C-words.  Scores were still super close after the halftime, so it was still anybody’s game, but Boh’s & Hoes had the lead with Catalina Wine Mixers on their heels and Fisted Sister coming right up behind them.

Round 3 began with a bit of Common Bonding and the answers were all… Sudden.  For the fourth question of the round, we took our hats off to new team E&E, as they were the only team to earn points by knowing the Broadway musical “Sweet Charity”!  We finished the round by testing your smarts when it came to African Countries.  We followed that up with the 6-4-2, which was one for the 1990s kids and Nickelodeon’s Doug Funnie.   Another new team (Schindler’s List) gained two points on the field by being the only team to earn six points here.  Great work!

Our fourth and final round still had some pretty close scores, with Boh’s & Hoes in the lead followed by Fisted Sister and the Arrondissements of Ouagadougou…  So I threw a couple of Rock Drummers your way and then closed things out with a little From Page to Screen action.  Even after all that, the scores were still closer than ever leading up to our final question on Pro Sports Teams!  With an answer of the New Jersey Devils, our winner’s circle looked like this:

First Place:  Boh’s & Hoes

Second Place:  Fisted Sister

Third Place:  The Arrondiesments of Ouagadagou

Next week’s first category:  “Spies Like Us”

See you next Sunday for Mother’s Day!

~ Torie

_________________________________________________________________

Tilted Kilt in Frederick, MD

We had a good time at the Tilted Kilt for our Sunday night trivia game! One team, however, had a kinda crazy game. They had a couple screw ups in the first half of the game, but were the ONLY team that had a GREAT second half! So much so that by the final question, they could wager 12, get it wrong, and then still get the victory!

There were definitely some tough questions in the Sunday set, but there was still a top 3 and this is how they looked. Finishing in 3rd place was Survivors! 2nd place went to a new team that used the name Brewster’s Farm!!  With a HUGE lead by the final question and getting the 1st place win was Dutchess!  With this win, they picked Urban Legends for next weeks winners choice, so study up, ans come join us for a game on Sunday at the Tilted Kilt!

~ Jon  J