[Victor Ferreira/Twitter]



It’s exciting enough to make it on Jeopardy, but when you may be the final Canadian candidate due to rule changes for the game show, appearing on stage with Alex Trebek is also historic.

Victor Ferreira, a 30-year-old Toronto researcher, has loved Jeopardy since he was a small child even before he knew English, having come to Canada from the Azores with his family at the age of three. But he didn’t really think he had a shot at appearing on the show until he became involved with trivia clubs in high school and college.

“I started applying when I was in second year of university in 2006, and have applied every year since,” Ferreira tells Yahoo Canada News. This year he finally made it, and on Jan. 27 he shot the Jeopardy appearance that will air on Friday.

It’s a good thing Ferreira finally made it through the online test, in-person interview, mock show and written test that contestants have to ace in order to get on that Los Angeles stage with Jeopardy host Trebek, himself a Canadian. Due to changes in the country’s online privacy regulations, Canadians are currently barred from taking the online test, which is the first step to qualifying to appear on the show.

Hopefully a fix can be found that will get Canadians on the show again, Ferreira says.

“From what I hear, the issue causing the ban is a relatively minor one,” he says. “I anticipate that at some point, hopefully in the near future, Canadians will be invited back and we will be able to show once again what the True North is capable of.”

After finding out right before the holidays that he’d been selected for the show, Ferreira had about four weeks to prep for his own Jeopardy appearance. In between his two jobs — as a researcher at the University Health Network and a microbiology instructor at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College — and Christmas celebrations, he crammed. He considers his strengths to be popular culture and science, so he put in time learning more about subjects like world capitals, opera, poetry and American history and geography.

“I really tried to focus on American content because a lot of the clues reflect American culture and the American contestants are just organically exposed to a lot of this information, which makes it harder for Canadians, I think,” Ferreira says.



He crammed with friends and his girlfriend and snuck in studying time whenever he could, including during his commute.

Ferreira’s strategy even involved prepping for dealing with the infamous Jeopardy buzzer. You must wait until the question is read before ringing in, he says–and if you don’t, you could be locked out from answering. One person’s sole job in studio is to activate the buzzers and turn on the indication light once a question is read.

“Most people try to anticipate the light, so it’s not uncommon to ring in and get the question before the light even comes on. Sometimes it does, and sometimes you just have to follow along with Trebek and hope that you anticipate the end perfectly without locking yourself out.”

After a decade of waiting to get his shot on the show, Ferreira says he was surprised just how quickly his Jeopardy experience flew by.

“The day never dragged and it was really neat to see the ‘magic’ at work,” he says. “For example, it was interesting to see that sometimes during shows, Alex will either read the wrong clue, or the game board people will accidentally put up the wrong clue. You never see this kind of thing on the show, so it was fascinating to see what happens in these little moments.”

Ferreira can’t say how he did on the show — viewers will have to wait until the show airs — but he’s got some impressive company among past Canadian candidates. Vancouver actuary Ben Blake broke a five-day winnings record in 1989 with nearly US $200,000, and returned to the show twice more in 1990 and 2005. On his way to winning almost $78,000 in 2009, Keith Wilson told the Jeopardy audience that Canadians like “beer, hockey and winning.” And civil servant Frédérique Delaprée came just $505 short of winning a third game in 2014, but still took home $22,800.

Wherever he falls among that list, Ferreira hopes he won’t be the last Canadian to keep Sudbury, Ont.,-born Trebek company on the Jeopardy stage.

“Whenever I see a Canadian on Jeopardy, I automatically know who I am cheering for,” he says. “Canadians take a great deal of pride in being on the show, competing at the highest levels and even winning. It would be a shame for us to be deprived of the opportunity to show off our skills on the world’s stage.”