Ottawa

Ottawa
Location: Ottawa, ON
Current President or Coach	Shelby Robert
National championships	none
NAQT Page	link

The University of Ottawa is a bilingual (French and English) public university in Ottawa, Ontario. Ben Smith has helped run the "Trivia Club" since he founded it in the 2003-04 season. The club sometimes links with Carleton University and Lisgar, both located in Ottawa.

Early History

There are tournament results showing a team from Ottawa participating in several quizbowl tournaments in Canada in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, no remaining students or club status from that time were apparent upon the establishment of the official club.

Modern History

The current club was established in 2003 amidst several other programs starting up around Canada in the same year. Ben Smith, Michelle Bishop, Jeff Gordon, and Philippe Marchand were the original members. Gordon was president in the early years due to a quirky (and now unenforced) rule stating that U of O clubs and their presidents must be bilingual, although French quizbowl has never been played at Ottawa. Tamara Vardomskaya joined the team and led them to 5th place at 2004 NAQT Canadian SCT. Ottawa participated in the 2005 ICT and 2006 ICT, finishing in the bottom bracket both times. Smith ran most of the club, though he did not serve as president because of language issues.

Britney Castleman became club president in 2009-10, and Ottawa participated in 9 tournaments that season. A team of Aaron Kozak, Brendan McKendy, Pamela Wu and Eddy Roue won SCT at McMaster and attended two ICTs, finishing 12th in DII in 2010 and 24th in DI in 2011.

Radu Popescu and Dennis Beeby represented Ottawa at the DII 2012 ICT in Chicago. Ottawa played ICT in 2013 and 2014, led by Jordan Palmer. With different teammates, Dennis Beeby and Jordan Palmer won the 2013 Canadian SCT and won Canadian ACF Regionals in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Shelby Robert served as club president from 2013-15.

Hosted Tournaments

Two annual tournaments are under the banner of Ottawa: the Ottawa Hybrid Tournament, and the Ottawa Quizbowl Tournament.

Ottawa Hybrid is a packet-submission hybrid tournament run nine times from 2005 to 2015. It was originally conceived as a cash grab to fund a trip to 2005 ICT, but was popular enough that Ben Smith started doing it annually. In 2011, Lisgar organized "BLASTOISE" as a replacement for Ottawa Hybrid.

The Ottawa Quizbowl Tournament, first run in 2005, is the first quizbowl-format tournament for high schools in Canada. It uses NAQT questions, usually an A set, modified to include Canadian topics. It has been won by Lisgar most years.

Year	Winning School
2005	Lisgar
2006	Lisgar
2007	Lisgar
2008	Merivale
2009	Lisgar
2010	Lisgar
2011	Lisgar
2012	Lisgar
2013	Colonel By
2014	Colonel By

Ottawa regularly hosts university- and open-level quizbowl tournaments. Ottawa hosted the Canadian SCT in 2011 and 2014.

Current Members (as of 2015)

• Anirudh Agarwal
• Dennis Beeby (captain 2013-2015)
• Cynthia Cheng
• Alicia Coe
• Ian Dewan
• Ian Ferguson
• Shervin Ghiami
• Colleen Grieve
• Tony Ivanenko
• Chris Johnston (captain 2015- )
• Vanessa Kraus (president 2015- )
• Nicole Laplante
• Rodrigo Morante
• Oscar Mou
• Jordan Palmer
• Shelby Robert (president 2013-2015)
• Jonathan Weber (treasurer 2012- )

Alumni/Former Members)

• Radu Popescu (captain 2011-2013, president 2012-2013)
• Kathy Andrews (publicity 2009-2010, treasurer 2010-2012)
• Natalie Ashton
• Dan Barber
• Michelle Bishop
• Erin Bolton (publicity 2011-2012)
• Julien Bosse
• Britney Castleman (president 2009-2010, 2010-2011)
• Sanmeet Chahal
• Vincent Clavette (publicity 2010-2011)
• Jeff Gordon
• Ian Harten
• Aaron Kozak (captain 2009-2010, 2010-2011)
• Kolja Kypke
• Melinda Mah (communications 2012, publicity 2012-2013)
• Philippe Marchand
• Brendan McKendy
• Peter McLaren
• Shauna McNally
• Charlotte Moore (vice-president 2011-2012)
• Russell Neesom
• Katie Packman (vice-president/secretary 2010-2011, president 2011-2012)
• Joe Pugh
• Jeff Quan
• Edward Roue
• Ben Smith (founder)
• Stephanie Smith (secretary 2009-2010)
• Thea Temple (treasurer 2012-2013)
• Tamara Vardomskaya
• Tina Vander Wielen
• Pamela Wu (webmaster 2009-2011)
• Andy Zhu (webmaster 2012-2013)

Links

Defunct Website: http://www.uotrivia.ca Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/57314731087/ Defunct Twitter: @uOttawaTrivia