Nova Scotia? Or Toronto? Canadian ‘Jeopardy!’ champion Mattea Roach pays homage to both

Canadian Mattea Roach at 23 years old is now tied for the eighth longest streak in the TV game show's history with 13 consecutive wins,

Canadian “Jeopardy!” champion Mattea Roach has found herself at the centre of an ownership dispute.

The 23-year-old Torontonian — or is that Haligonian? — tutor is now tied for the eighth longest streak in the TV game show’s history with 13 consecutive wins, and her fellow Canadians are taking note.

“People in Nova Scotia, and then also people in Toronto — the two places that I associate myself most closely with — have been very eager to claim me as belonging more to one than the other,” said Roach, who spent the first six years of her life and some of her adolescence in Halifax.

“They don’t want to just claim that you’re from Canada if you’re from a specific city or specific province. It’s like, ‘No, she’s not just from Canada. She’s from Nova Scotia, or she’s in Toronto.”’

In reality, she belongs to both. Nova Scotia is home, she said after cracking the Top 10 list this week, but she feels deeply attached to Toronto — the city she moved to for a university degree in political science and sexual diversity studies.

She’s also spent time in Calgary and Moncton, N.B.

But she understands the “very Canadian” propensity for pride in “homegrown celebrities” and even commented on it on the quiz show while referring to the late longtime “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek.

Roach realized she had achieved national renown when she spotted an article about herself on the satirical website, “The Beaverton.”