Toronto Trivia Night, From Old York to the 6

Toronto lives beside a lake it mostly forgets is there, until a summer evening turns the water silver at the foot of Yonge Street and everyone remembers at once. The streetcars grind along King and Queen, the Island ferry fills with coolers and bikes, and in February half of downtown goes underground into the PATH and waits the winter out.

Winter is when trivia night earns its keep. A room on the Danforth or up in North York, windows fogged, boots dripping by the door, six friends arguing over whether it was Joe Carter or Roberto Alomar. People here come from everywhere, so the table that wins the geography round is rarely the one you expect, and the music round swings from the Tragically Hip to Bollywood to whatever Drake put out last.

None of it happens without the people at the front of the room. The trivia host with the handwritten scoresheet, the band loading in through the side door on a Wednesday, the comic working out a new bit in a basement on Queen West: they are the neighbourhood's real infrastructure. The city keeps building towers; somebody has to keep the rooms at street level full.