CEF "Trivia Night" Packs the House at Fish & Game

Two hundred Chatham residents may have gotten in on the ground floor of a new town tradition on Saturday night.  The setting was the always festive Fish & Game club and the event was “Trivia Night” – a fundraiser to benefit the Chatham Education Foundation (CEF) which helps supplement tax dollars to support the School District of the Chathams.

17 teams of 10 players was to be the limit, but ever-increasing demand caused the fledgling enterprise to push its capacity to 20, with many more left on the waitlist.

Each team had free reign to festoon its assigned table as it pleased – spreads of food and drink were everywhere, although one team’s request to have a world map tablecloth was quickly nixed.

Several teams went the extra mile with uniforms that included team names on t-shirts, oversized spectacles and a blow horn that saluted its owners’ correct answers.

At 8:00 sharp, the mostly affable and always colorful host Ian Horowitz declared the game underway, and teams from “Firepit Friends” to “Wicked Smaht” began huddling and scribbling.

“Which of the following was NOT a headline about Anthony Weiner in the NY Post?”

“How many municipalities share a border with the Chathams?”

At the halfway point, the scores were closer than the pages in a Chatham History textbook. It was anybody’s game. As the tension mounted, the crack CEF organizers toyed with the crowd by ending each round by playing “Runnin’ Down a Dream”, “Under Pressure” and towards the end, yes, Europe’s “Final Countdown.”

The last question in the last category – TV Theme Songs – led to the entire well-lubricated house singing “Sometimes you want to go…where everybody knows your name…and you’re always glad you came…”

They had, and they were. 

In the end, it was the “Beroccas” who emerged victorious, taking full advantage of rules that allowed each team to play for double points in a single category of their choosing.  The Beroccas had picked wisely, answering nine out of ten “Current Events” questions for a total of 18 points.  No other team answered more than six correctly in that same category, and the margin proved to be the difference. 

So congrats to the Beroccas -- who in Stanley Cup fashion – will now be the proud owners of the opulent “CEF Trivia Night Superstars” trophy until next year.  Congrats as well to the other 19 teams, most of whom were one good round away from hoisting the trophy themselves.  And congrats and thanks most of all to the CEF for highlighting a terrific cause, while showing 200 lucky attendees an evening they’ll be buzzing about for a while.

And next year it will only get better.