It was a crisp fall morning in October when The McGill Tribune’s varsity Stack Cup team piled into the car to begin our journey. Where were we headed? New York City. What were we doing? Team bonding—and taking on our first challenge as a varsity team. We trained for months, gathering at each other’s apartments to practice our throws and pong ball bounces from dawn till dusk. So, when the Bronx came calling, we answered. Bags in hand, all we had to do was stop at a bodega to pick up our equipment.
The tournament was hosted just outside of Fordham University: An academic powerhouse with a decorated 182-year history, making it the perfect location for a prestigious competition. But Fordham wasn’t prepared for how big the McGill team was.
“I was surprised by how ready [McGill] was to play,” said host Brittany* in an interview with the Tribune. “I assumed that as Canadians, everyone would be too nice to play rage cage well.”
After a hearty two-for-$5 pizza dinner at the shop around the corner from our hotel, we got on the subway, hyping each other up and trying to calm our nerves. Our reputation was on the line, and we needed to show McGill that we deserved to keep our new varsity status. Fordham students greeted us warmly when we arrived, daring us to explain Canadian geography and take pictures in front of the Gibby shower curtain, our ultimate idol. But we didn’t waste much time chatting—it was game time.
We gathered around a folding Lifetime table in the compact backyard of a Bronx home—Fordham is in the Bronx for all you non-locals—and dispersed red Solo cups in a large circle, then proceeded to fill them with an assortment of beer, saving the nastiest combination of beer, White Claw, wine, and tequila for the dreaded bitch cup. Our palms were sweaty, knees weak, arms were heavy. We looked forward to the first few sips of Natty Light that would calm our nerves. This was going to be a rage cage match for the ages.
But Fordham came to play dirty. Both in the traditional sense of the term—beer splattered on the table and all over our hands—as well as mentally, as we sank into inebriation.
Any varsity team has to be prepared for the shouts, the player engagement, the mid-match trash talk. But the regional differences between our schools meant we had to be careful what we screamed at strangers across the table: Our references had to be both quippy and comprehensible.
The game felt like a blur—even now, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how many times each of us ended up “in the cage,” with the participant to our left repeatedly stacking their cup into one of ours as the rest of the table looked on in anticipation. Hardly anyone can even recall who really won and who really lost, though being on the edge of a blackout certainly didn’t help.
Regardless of the gaps in our collective memory, McGill claimed a certain type of victory that night: We definitely consumed the most, but were unable to hold it together post-match. At the end of the night, we left the tournament, trophy in hand—a borrowed fire alarm that was proudly displayed in the Tribune office—until it had to be returned to event organizers in preparation for next year’s match-up (and to avoid incurring fines at the end of their lease).
Victory celebrations ensued over the course of the weekend. Instead of drinks, we enjoyed some bagels with lox and book shopping, even stopping by Central Park to bask in the sun—and our glory. Our months of training paid off, but we suffered physically for days because of the fierce competition. All we can say now is, look out, aspiring rage-cage international competition participants—McGill is not known for giving up a championship title once we’ve earned it.
Names have been changed to preserve anonymity—we couldn’t do anything else to protect them from further embarrassment after losing to us.
