Cascade's What the #!*@? Quiz -- a mainstay of the Vancouver quizzing scene -- coming to an end

Sad tidings indeed from Main Street. Karen, the longtime quizmeister of the Cascade Room, has announced that effective next month, that establishment's venerable quiz will be no more--at least as a regularly-scheduled event. From their official facebook page:

Now for those of you who were not with us last night, an announcement! After more than 5 1/2 years, 165 quizzes and close to $30,000 raised for more than 70 charities, our What the #!*@? Quiz night is coming to an end. Our last quiz will be Monday, November 25th…please come and join us for a fond farewell…I've enjoyed almost every single second of it

I will continue with some special event Quiz Nights as well as Quiz Nights on request so keep in touch! This is not "goodbye"…it's "most likely see you soon". So I'll expect to see lots of familiar faces on the 25th xo k

For those who don't know, Cascade is one of Vancouver's longest-running and greatest pub quizzes. Many Vancouverites first caught the pub trivia bug there, including, I am sure, at least a few individuals who now run quizzes of their own. Yet none of them have ever duplicated the sheer quizzing pleasure of Cascade, which was probably best encapsulated in their famous "what's-in-the-shot" rounds, the likes of which we may never see again.

The continued success of Cascade owes everything to Karen's extraordinary commitment to her craft. Each week (and later, fortnightly, and eventually monthly) she would hammer out a full set of questions, the freshness of which was attested by the habitual inquisitions on the news of the day and other happenings of only a few days' vintage. Her annual Quiz of Champions, an invitational grand prix featuring only winning teams of the past year was yet another (hugely successful) expression of the same--for participants it was nothing less than the Wimbledon of Vancouver quizzery.

True to the progressive ethos of Mount Pleasant, 100 percent of proceeds from the quiz went to a local charity of the players' choosing, a fact which makes abundantly clear that the undertaking was, at bottom, a labour of love and not a mercenary ploy to pump up Tuesday night patronage (though that it certainly did).

After more than a half-decade of unflagging quality, the departure of What the #!*@? is to be sorely lamented. As mentioned above, Cascade's final regular quiz takes place November 25 and is sure to be a night to remember.