Election Night 2011: the Drinking Game

What started off as a snoozer of a campaign has turned into the most exciting and unexpected race of recent memory. If you haven’t yet done so, go and vote. Then set yourself down in front of the TV for everyone’s favourite election-night ritual: wall-to-wall results coverage. If the prospect of four straight hours of Peter Mansbridge, Lloyd Robertson or the Sun News tag team of Krista Erickson and David Akin doesn’t get you excited, we present another reason to stay glued to the tube. Here, our Election Night Drinking Game.

Have a drink if or when:

• anyone refers to this election as “historic.”
• a reporter speculates on what impact Osama Bin Laden’s death will have on the results.
• Christine Innes manages to unseat Olivia Chow in Trinity-Spadina. Actually, have two: one drink for Innes, and one for her revenge-seeking husband, Tony Ianno, who lost to Chow in 2006.
• Chester Brown, the graphic novelist turned Libertarian candidate in Trinity-Spadina, breaks the 500-vote mark.
• TV hosts start considering ever-more arcane post-election manoeuvres without mentioning the word “coalition.”
• the Conservatives air a pre-emptive attack ad about Bob Rae or Justin Trudeau—just to be safe.
• anyone makes a bad Orange Crush pun.
• a guest on Sun News expresses outrage over lack of public reaction to Strokegate.
• the Liberals manage to hold onto Official Opposition status.
• the Greens actually manage to win a seat (actually, you should probably shotgun a beer for that one).

At the end of the game, whoever is still conscious is the loser. Which would imply that certain federal leaders will be quite conscious by the end of the night.

(Images: Duceppe, CDCC; Ignetieff, Radey Barrack; Harper, Robert Thivierge; Layton, Matt Jiggins)