Many sports and activities have had to adjust to covid regulations. Quiz Bowl and Knowledge Bowl are no exception. Quiz Bowl meets this year have been held over Zoom. Participants gather in the same Zoom call and use an online app to buzz in. This new system has not been without its pitfalls. Internet outages have prevented teams and individuals like HF’s Antonio Gaeta from joining rounds. Poor audio quality can also make understanding questions and answers more difficult. Through the challenges, senior Ewan Farrell says, “It has been interesting seeing how the league adapted to allow us to continue competing this year. I don’t think everything has worked perfectly, but it still allows for us to compete.” The HF Quiz Bowl team is undaunted and continues to be excited to compete.

Knowledge Bowl has also moved online but to Discord rather than Zoom. Students use the chat to buzz in and answer with the option of typing or speaking answers. This system provides its own unique challenges such as latency in text chats leading to confusion over buzzes. HF’s varsity Gorm team and JV Blue team continue to persevere achieving 4th among varsity teams and 2nd among JV teams in their first Knowledge Bowl meet.

Mr. Walker, Knowledge and Quiz Bowl coach, has continued to keep his same passion for the activity through the pandemic. When asked for a comment about this year’s season he said,

“Quiz bowl and Knowledge bowl were pretty much made for a pandemic.  Practice in masks?  No problem!  Virtual meets?  No problem!  The trickiest part has been adjusting for the lag between buzzer and reader.  I have to admit I sometimes miss the long bus rides west to competitions. Both teams are doing well and have a better than even chance to qualify for post-season competition.”