ANON wrote:
In fact, I have suggested this very thing in the past; but I remember NYDAVY being very insistent with me that the Mad River team was NOT to be considered the same as the A&M/B4 group, nor was it to be considered the same as the NickelodeInn team, either. Because I considered him to be much more of an authority on this subject than me, I have deferred to him on this ever since.
I think a brief history will shed a more even-handed light on this situation.
The Showdown team at Nickelodeinn began circa 1993. From the mid- to later nineties, it was generally considered (there were no statistics kept until I began the practice in 1997) to be the predominant Showdown team. Let's call the people who played then the "original Nickelodeinn people."
When I began to keep statistics, this group ranked number one and National West Covina was ranked number two. This lasted until West Covina began using computers to play Showdown, roughly the second half of 1998 . After that happened, most of the original Nickelodeinn players began to drift away. Circa 2000/2001, the team picked up a few players who had previously played at Maggie Mae's (including myself) and a new recruit from "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" (XTRAIN).
Nickelodeinn closed its doors in the spring of 2002. By the fall, the team found itself a home at A&M Roadhouse. Only two "original Nickelodeinn" players went to and played regularly at A&M Roadhouse, NYDAVY and NYMFAF. Due to some new players, the group experienced a resurgence, one that continued when A&M Roadhouse gave up the game and the group moved to B4.
To make a long story short, there was an acrimonious breakup of the group in 2007, one centering around NYDAVY. He stopped playing the game shortly thereafter; NYMFAF and myself stopped playing Showdown due to family obligations. Those who remained went to play at Mad River, where they have remained ever since.
What is my take on the legitimate/illegitimate descendants of these teams?
The original Nickelodeinn team had a distinct temperament, let's call them the trivia equivalent of the Yankees' Bronx Zoo. It was a temperament not shared by those who came later on. There is only one "original Nickelodeinn player" still playing the game, and that is SYZYGY, who has played on Long Island teams, now Houlihans, for the past umpteen years.
There are two current Mad River players who did play for at least some time at Nickelodeinn, myself and XTRAIN. Would I consider either of us original Nickelodeinn players? No. We were on the roster, but we didn't have the Nick spirit, as Davey might put it.
On the other hand, there's no question in my mind that the current Mad River team is the direct, spiritual, literal, whateveral descendant of the A&M/B4 teams: a sizable, significant chunk of the A&M team plays at Mad River. If Mad River were modern man, A&M looks like Cro-Magnon, while Nickelodeinn Man seems more like Neanderthalish, somewhat related, yes, but not a direct descendant and now extinct.