And here, we are! The last regular season tournament of the year! What a beautiful day for a drive to Wolfboro, huh? Mother Nature really smiled on this year, with no major weather issues for any of our tournaments. 

It was an exciting season, and there was plenty of drama that came down to the wire on Saturday. First off, a big thank you to John and his kids for having us all up to Kingswood! It was a great time! Also, I want to take a moment and shout out the fact that because we got all the registrations in by Friday, we were able to have the bracket ready to go as soon as everyone arrived, and we started pretty quick! And we had readers for all our rooms, and it was just great. I love it when a plan comes together.

Three things before I get to the important stuff. 1) Look for a season feedback survey within the next two weeks. Please share some of the questions with your players, especially if you don’t plan on making it to the coaches council meeting! 2) Please let Carlene know if you’re heading up to Lisbon on the 28th. And 3) let me or Sara know if you think you’re interested in a spring rookie jamboree at Merrimack. 

On with the good stuff! Eleven schools played on Saturday. Merrimack went 10-0 on the day, but as they’re already safely qualified (as is BG, who finished second), we dropped down to Fall Mtn, who had a 7-3 day, and claimed the final AQ slot for the state tournament. The final three qualifiers, based on at-large points, came out to Salem, Kingswood and PCA. Pinkerton came on strong in the second half of the season, but just missed out, landing at 13 points on the season. 

On the J/V side, BG took the honors for the day, with a record of 9-1, but Fall Mtn. claimed the season crown for the 2nd year in a row, with 40 points. 

The full results and the final standings are below. The State tournament is set for April 5 on Sunday afternoon. Time to be confirmed shortly. If anyone is interested in coming to spectate, let me know, or if someone wants to come read questions, please do! I also may reach out to some guest readers, who ought to know what they’re doing. It’s been a great season, and I appreciate all you guys do for your students over the course of a season! Thanks for being a part of what makes NHQBL great! 

Good afternoon everyone!

Sorry for the delay, but I was busy for the rest of the weekend, and tied up all morning with classes, so I am just now getting to this. I’ll get right to it.

First, thanks for coming and hanging out with us in Salem this weekend. We had a great time! Also, if you’re interest in Jay’s tournament next weekend at Plymouth, get in touch with him ASAP! Also, given that Feb Break is approaching for many of us, and for many, the Kingswood  tournament will be the weekend after we get back from break, expect to see registration forms for that sooner rather than later, so you have a chance to try and get it taken care of before the vacation. 

Now, on to the results. We had 10 varsity teams and 8 j/v teams on Saturday. Plymouth had a very good day in the varsity bracket, with 10 wins. But of course, they’re already in the state tournament, so taking the AQ spot from this one is Bishop Guertin, with a record of 9-1. They also took home top prize for j/v teams with a matching 9-1 record. 

Only 1 more AQ spot left up for grabs at Kingswood on March 7, so I know we’ll see a good turn out there. Tight race for the at-large spots shaping up with as many as 5 teams still in the hunt. And the j/v of the year honors are not quite locked up yet, so, lots to be decided. 

Here are the standings

Shaping up for a good finish! See you all in Kingswood! 

Hello all! 

I’m sorry this is so late, but the remainder of our weekend was taken up with holiday preparations, and what wasn’t given over to that, I was grading essays. So, you know, the usual stuff associated with my day job. 

Real quick reminders and then on to the important stuff: 1) We’re on hiatus till February! Good luck to the GSC teams! (I know who I’m rooting for this year, but then, I am biased). 2) Dues! Many of you have paid for the 19-20 school year, and for that I thank you. If you haven’t, please consider it! If you need more information, please let me know!

Okay. First, thanks to Sara and her crew for a great time! The food was great, and everything ran very smoothly, in spite of a few hitches. It was a great morning for everyone!

We had 10 varsity teams, and 14 j/v teams. Once again we welcomed a new team to the fold this week, the folks from Alvirne, who came to play, and as I’m sure you all found out, and played real tough, so congratulations to them for their first outing with us. I hope they’ll be back to join us again soon! Hanover and Merrimack tied with records if 9-1, but since Hanover is already qualified for the state tournament, there was no need for any tie breaking procedures, Merrimack took the qualifying slot for this tournament! This is the third tournament in a row where the home team has won the qualifying slot, which is a good omen for me for February. (Maybe). Anyway. On the j/v side, Fall Mt. A took home the candy bag, and overall stretched out a one win lead for Fall Mtn. for the best j/v of the year. 

Here’s how the rest shook out: 

And the all important overall standings. A tight race at the top of the charts for those three “points” qualifiers, as we have passed the half-way mark of the season. 

So, that’s where we’re at for now. We’ll see you all in February! Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah and a Happy New Year!

Hi everyone! 

Sorry this is late getting out to you, but with the holiday coming up, I was busy all of the remaining weekend. 

All that being said, we had a great day Saturday. Murph and his gang at Hanover put on a great tournament for us. We all had a blast! (And I’ll take the blame for the fact that the rooms were so far apart in the varsity grid. When Murph sent me the numbers, I had assumed that they ran consecutively, or something. I know better for next time!) 

Before we get to the results, I just want to share a little news with you. Recently, after some consultation among Board members, and presented with a great opportunity, we scooped up several new (gently used) buzzer systems from eBay for the league. We also have a couple buzzer sets in League inventory in storage at Hanover. We would like to make these available on loan to schools without buzzers, to help them with their practice, and with their recruiting. Profile became the first recipient of a loaner buzzer, and they are very excited to take it home with them on Saturday. If there’s anyone here who would like more information about getting one of these loaner buzzers to help their team grow, or if you know of someone who would take one to start a new program somewhere, please let me know, I’d love to talk to you. 

Last thing before the good stuff, just a reminder that our next tournament is Dec. 14 at Merrimack! You’ll be getting that registration form right after Thanksgiving, and it’s going to come up fast, so just don’t let it sneak up on you! 

Okay, so, here’s the good stuff. We had 11 varsity teams and 13 j/v teams playing today, so a solid turnout all around. One of Plymouth’s j/v teams played up into varsity to round out both sides at 12 each. Plymouth varsity ran the table at 10-0, but since they qualified for the State Tournament back in September, we’ll set their result aside. That left Hanover and Merrimack at 8-2, but Hanover topped Merrimack in the match they played, so that meant Hanover held the tiebreaker edge. That means that Hanover got the win, and the slot at the State Tournament in April. On the j/v side of things, Hanover also had a great day, with their team running the table at 10-0. Hopefully Murph remembered their bag of candy! I never saw one, but presumably they know where to find him. Here’s the full results:

And the all important overall standings

And that’s all she wrote folks! I hope you have a great Thanksgiving and a happy holiday! Don’t run over anyone on Black Friday with a shopping cart, and enjoy the time with family. We’ll see you all in December at Merrimack! 

Just a reminder that if you are planning to attend the Qualifier at Hanover, please fill out the registration form! If you need a link, email us at nhquizbowlleague@gmail.com!

Also, please note that the Qualifier scheduled for Feb. 1, 2020, will now be held at Salem, due to conflicts at PCA.

Good luck at GSC qualifying!

The link for registration for the November 23rd Qualifying Tournament at Hanover has been sent out! Send us a message if you haven’t gotten it yet!

Good evening all!

Hi all!

Welcome back to the school year! We’ve got some exciting things going on for NHQBL this year, so I thought I’d take a minute or two and jot down some info for you.

First and foremost, here is a reminder of our tournament schedule for this year:

Sept. 28: Plymouth
Oct. 26: GHOST at Hanover
Nov. 23: Hanover
Dec. 14: Merrimack
Feb. 1: PCA
March 7: Kingswood
March 21: Potential date for snow reschedule.
April 6(?) State finals 

Also, as a reminder, this year, each tournament’s winner (who hasn’t already won a tournament), will qualify for the state tournament, regardless of geography. So, Jay will be hosting our first tournament, so stay tuned for registration announcements for that.

So, here are some other updates:

1. Recruitment- Over the summer I took the initiative of preparing a postcard mailing on behalf of the league. Leveraging my connections with NHPBS, I got a copy of their mailing list for all NH high schools. I had a postcard printed, and made labels. The postcards have a blank spot for the next tournament date which can also be filled with a sticker label, so the plan is to use them for several years. (Thanks to my wife for that brilliant suggestion!)  Those postcards will be mailed out next Monday. Most of you won’t see them (I think I skipped most schools already on the email list to save on postage, but a few of you might see one). Hopefully, this will at least get us some exposure in areas where there hasn’t been in a long time, and maybe a few new faces will join us. 

1. Questions: Our new questions are in process and will be here before our season starts. We are purchasing fresh, pristine questions from QuizBowlQuestions.com, an outfit out of Oklahoma. They are nice and current, and will come to us automatically divided into rounds. They will feature a standard distribution of topics in each round. We will be sequestering these questions after each tournament (questions will be collected, and not distributed). The reason for this is that we will reuse them 4 years from now as J/V questions, at that point, they will be released. In the meantime, we will continue to use Academic Hallmarks for j/v rounds, though that database has been updated as of this year. That’s the plan, anyway. 

1. Dues-Always voluntary, but please pay them if you can. We are currently doing fine for cash, given our donation from the Byrne foundation last year, but if we continue to purchase fresh questions every year, that will run out rather quicker than we want. Let’s put it this way, if we have 12 teams participate this year, and all 12 pay dues, it will cover the pristine questions. (The A-H database was another expense, but we will not be repeating that cost again. We’ll use this database until we can begin recycling our pristine questions.)

1. Tournaments: I hope to be a little more hands on this year helping people prep for tournaments. I’m going to be using Google Forms for registration, which I can share with tournament hosts. The reason for this is to try and tighten up our schedules ahead of time, so we can start closer to 10am. I know that late starts are an NHQBL tradition, but it’s one I think we’d all like to phase out. If you’re hosting this year, I’ll be in touch with you well ahead of time to set things up. 

1. On a related topic, but not really: Some of you know that I’ve been working with NHPBS to do some research on Granite State Challenge. The early fruits of that labor have been compiled at www.gscconnection.com. I’m still looking for information regarding the 1993-1994 and the 1995-1996 season, so if for any reason, you may have memory of, or know someone who does have memory of either of those seasons, reach out to me, please! 

That’s it, if you made it this far. Thanks for being a part of our group, and as always, let me know if there’s someone else I should be contacting about NHQBL. Look forward to seeing you all soon!

Hey all!

REMINDER: If you want to attend the “Rookie Players” exhibition tournament at Merrimack, remember to contact Sara (sara.campbell@sau26.org) as soon as possible!

We held our spring coaches meeting on Tuesday, and we tackled a number of important issues. You can link to the full meeting minutes HERE, but for those of you who just want the important stuff, here we go:

1) Finances: We have $10,682.65 in the NHQBL account. There’s an additional ~$1300 in the old account at Hanover High. We made a motion to officially request release of those funds so as to consolidate them.

2) Divisions: The plan had been to discuss whether we needed adjustments for the geographic regions, but what ended up happening was a decision to do away with them entirely. All tournaments next year will be played “at-large”, meaning whoever scores the best, wins the tournament, regardless of where they are from. If a team has the best record but has already won, the “winner” will be the second place team. These teams will still get automatic bids to the tournament, and we will still take the three top wild card teams. This eliminates the worry about about balanced regions. We also just want to remind folks that several years ago, we agreed that teams must play in at least 2 tournaments to qualify for the finals, even if they do win.

3) Tournament organization: We are going  to strongly encourage teams to please report to their hosts FIRM numbers by the Thursday before a tournament, to enable hosts to set up grids before Saturday morning, in an effort to get things started on time. Hosts are encouraged to work with the league to organize ahead of time. And a reminder to hosts to please acknowledge registration emails, so teams know you got their numbers.

4) Questions: We will be purchasing new questions for next year. What kind, we’re not 100% sure yet. We all took sample packets from a variety of companies, and we’re still gathering prices. We’re going to consult via email, and make a decision so they can be ordered before the end of the school year. We’re going to be considering cost and availablity as key factors, as well as style. No one really wants to change the essential style of the questions, (we’re not planning on switching to full NAQT pyramid, for example), but we want to consider cost and sustainability. No sense in contracting for question that will cost us 2 grand a pop, we can’t sustain that in the long term if we want to buy fresh every year.

5) 2019-2020 Schedule. Even though all tournaments will be at-large next year, we did make an effort to spread the tournaments around to at least one will be convenient for most people. We tried to avoid major conflicts, but we did have to make a choice between doing a holiday weekend in the fall and potentially conflicting with All-State Music auditions, and we decided to stay away from the holidays. Without further ado: