Pettigrew’s Duke of York trivia is one of the longest-running pub quizzes in the city. He had trivia booklets printed with the title “Zoom Trivia Live!” and A/V rounds included Pettigrew’s pandemic-perfected before-and-after marker drawings, which the community loved enough to demand they get their own Instagram account You can play along there, guessing answers like “Juno Country for Old Men” and “Blade-y and the Tramp.” “Let’s get the band back together one last time.” “Like, we’ve been seeing each other for 100 weeks on Zoom,” he said. He likened the in-person version to “a Scorsese ‘Last Waltz.’” He told me he felt guilty he didn’t reunite us sooner and paid for this live iteration out of his own pocket. “It really helped to be working away at trivia rounds rather than ruminating about my health.”Įventually, when the world started opening up again and people got Zoom fatigue, virtual trivia fizzled, leading Pettigrew to announce a hiatus in May 2022. “There was a period of about a month when everybody thought I was going to die,” he said. Weekly trivia helped many through a tough time, including Pettigrew, who underwent major surgery in October 2020. He later raised money for those in need, such as Black Lives Matter demonstrators who required bail funds after being arrested during George Floyd protests. At first, Pettigrew kept some of it himself and gave the rest to laid-off bar staff. There was no entrance fee, just pay-what-you-can donations through e-transfer. It was a sense of structure and community during a time when we were all longing for it. When one of us got engaged or pregnant, the team members were some of the first to know.Īt a time of extreme isolation, seeing the same faces every Monday night, cracking jokes and identifying songs from three-second audio clips, was a much-needed shared experience. Some of my teammates were already friends, some started out as friends of friends, but soon I knew their lives intimately and they knew mine. With two different screens open - one where Pettigrew read the questions, and the other where I conferred with my Shut Up, Nerds! teammates - we played multiple rounds every week. Pub quizzes spread to Toronto from the UK, and at their core they’re all relatively similar: a host reads a series of questions (sometimes offering audio and visual clues), as teams write down answers to compete for a prize - say, a pitcher of beer, an appetizer or simply bragging rights.įor me, and many other regulars, those nights on Zoom were a lifeline. They’ve both specialized and diversified, and now there’s a pub quiz to fit virtually every personality or interest. After many local games pivoted online, they’ve now come roaring back to life, more ubiquitous than ever. Trivia has always been a fun thing to do on a weeknight, but it’s become much more meaningful since the pandemic. “I’ve aged about a decade,” said quizmaster Luke Pettigrew during his introduction to the crowd of 90 or so players. This was the first time we gathered in person to play in three years, but for many of us it felt longer. It was like being at an A-list TIFF party - except these were all trivia nerds like me. Everywhere I looked I saw faces I’d only ever seen on screens. George subway station, everyone laughed a little harder. I’ve been to the Duke of York’s pub quiz dozens of times, but on a recent Monday evening I felt a new energy.Īs I squeezed into a booth in the packed basement of the British pub near St.
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