Island Cup

The Island Cup is a tournament series held since 2019 in Smithtown, New York by the Long Island Quiz Bowl Alliance. It generally uses a mixture of NAQT sets and housewrites.

History

The tournaments were first proposed in 2018 in response to the folding of the KPAQT by former Smithtown West player Joe Feldman; after a year of preparation, the tournaments began in October 2019. Each leg is a direct successor to a discontinued Long Island tournament: the October leg is the successor to SWISS; the February leg is the successor to KPAQT; and the May leg is the successor to the long-discontinued Hills West tournament.

The inaugural event was widely mocked as the "Meme Tournament" due to the small field. Reviews for the February 2020 event were highly positive. Notably, the event featured four teams from Connecticut in the top bracket, despite the "Island Cup" moniker. The two in-person events lost thousands of dollars due to the small fields.

The May 2020 event was moved to Discord in response to the Coronavirus pandemic on Long Island. It was the only tournament to make such a move.

For the 2020-21 season, the Island Cup was integrated into the American Quizbowl League, and the Cup was the Northeast regional October, February, and April online tournaments.

In 2021-22, the Cup was again administered by LIQBA. The first tournament garnered controversy for Feldman's handling of mask policy and his politics-related conduct, including his removal of two current events questions without NAQT's permission.

Island Cup Trophy

The top team over the three tournaments from Long Island (i.e. Nassau and Suffolk counties) is awarded a silver-coated pewter traveling trophy. Being that results from three tournaments are taken into consideration, the winner is determined by a points formula.

• For every win in the prelims, teams earn one point;
• For every win in the playoffs and finals, teams earn two points;
• For every loss in the playoffs, teams earn one point;
• For every win in the First Consolation bracket, teams earn one point;
• For winning a tournament, teams earn three points, two for second, and one for third;
• For every prelims loss, second-and-lower consolation win, or consolation loss, teams earn no points.

Results

Num.	Date	Location	Set	Teams	Champions	Second Place	Third Place	Fourth Place	MVP
I	Oct 2019	Great Hollow MS	IS-187A	10	Kellenberg A	Churchill JHS A	Island Trees A	North Babylon A	Aidan York, Kellenberg A
	Feb 2020	Great Hollow MS	IS-191A	16	Darien B	Darien A	West Egg A	Middlesex MS A	Jimena Sarapura-Phipps, Darien A
	May 2020	Discord	BUTTERSCOT	26	Wayzata	Scarsdale	Canada NB	Kinkaid	Jacob Hardin-Bernhardt, Team Pierre Trudeau
	Island Cup I	--	--	45	Kellenberg A	Darien B	North Babylon A	Darien A	Jacob Hardin-Bernhardt, Team Pierre Trudeau
III	Oct 2021	Smithtown HS West	IS-205A	23	Livingston A	Mather A	Middlesex Middle A	Mather B	Aalok Bhattacharya, Staples