‘Jeopardy!’ Champ Mattea Roach’s Winning Streak Reaches 17 Games

etcanada.com:

“Jeopardy!” champ Mattea Roach has proven she can conquer dozens of quiz clues with ease. But in addition to displaying superior skill with the buzzer, the phenom has had to prepare for another challenge that can get harder with each win: coming up with engaging anecdotes for each TV episode.

Such are the lesser-known consequences of dominating “Jeopardy!” categories like the 23-year-old. Roach, who grew up in Halifax and now lives in Toronto, has the longest win streak by a Canadian with 17 wins and the eighth-longest run in the quiz show’s history. READ MORE: N.S. ‘Jeopardy!’ champ Mattea Roach makes family proud, wins 16th game “Jeopardy!” champion-turned-host Ken Jennings holds the record with 74 consecutive wins in 2004.

On Wednesday’s episode, Roach beat her closest competitor by just $1 after the Final Jeopardy! round. Ben Hsia had exactly double her total, and both answered the final clue correctly.

Roach’s 17-day total winnings is now US$396,182. “It does get hard,” Roach said when reached by phone on the day of her 13th episode. “I didn’t watch Ken’s run all the way through as a kid because I was like, five, six years old when it was happening but I’m sure that he must have really been scraping the bottom of the barrel by the end of it.” READ MORE: ‘Jeopardy!’ champion Mattea Roach continues streak with 15th win These personal tidbits are typically featured after the first commercial break, when hosts Jennings or Mayim Bialik offer each contestant a few minutes to tell the audience about themselves.