‘Jeopardy!’ Champ Mattea Roach Revealed Her Mantra Prior to Each Show

Mattea Roach has a certain habit she practices before each 'Jeopardy!' game that gives her confidence at the quiz board.

by Melissa Mitas

Published on April 29, 2022

3 min read

Mattea Roach spoke with Robin Roberts about her ‘Jeopardy!’ run

Appearing on Good Morning America on April 28, Roach explained how competing on Jeopardy! was a goal she wasn’t sure she would achieve.

“It’s something that I always was interested in, in sort of a passive way,” Roach told Robin Roberts. “You have to be so lucky to get through all of the various stages of the selection process to get on Jeopardy! So, although I thought for a long time it’s something I might enjoy and might be good at, it wasn’t something I ever expected to get to do.”

The LSAT tutor joins an esteemed group of Jeopardy! contestants with epic victory runs. Matt Amodio, Amy Schneider, and Jonathan Fisher racked up double-digit victories this season.

“This has been such a crazy season of streaks and I was fully thinking Amy [Schneider] might still be here,” Roach said, according to Deadline.. “If it’s not Amy, there’s going to be some other super-champion that’s just going to knock me out Game One. I guess what I didn’t realize is maybe I could become the super-champion I wanted to see in the world.”

‘Jeopardy!’ champ prays before each game

Roberts mentioned that some fans spot the Jeopardy! champ talking to herself in the few seconds leading up to game time and asked Roach about the pre-match practice.

“When the cameras first started rolling, and Johnny Gilbert is reading the introduction, I’m kind of muttering something a little bit and what I was saying was Hail Marys actually,” Roach remarked. “I went to Catholic high school and there was a giant image of Mary in the study hall where we would write all our exams.”

She added, “I started to associate praying to Mary with, I guess, anything intellectual. I figured, you know, it certainly can’t hurt. It certainly didn’t seem to hurt me.”

Mattea Roach is proud to represent her home country

Roach spoke of Jeopardy! icon Alex Trebek in her interview with Roberts. The game show legend, who died of pancreatic cancer in November 2020, was also a native Canadian and Roach expressed her gratitude for representing their country.

“To get to represent Canada on the ‘Alex Trebek Stage’ means a lot,” she said. “As Canadians, we’re so proud of our homegrown celebrities who made it big in the U.S. And so, it didn’t occur to me as I was taping these shows that I had become the longest-running Canadian but I’m really honored by the support that everyone across the country has shown me. It’s so meaningful and it fills me with so much joy.”

Alex Trebek of ‘Jeopardy!’ | Amanda Edwards/Getty Images

Roach grew up in Halifax and now resides in Toronto, yet both regions are claiming the Jeopardy! star as their own.

“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,” Roach explained, as reported by Seaway News. “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.”‘

Roach will attempt her 19th victory on April 29 on Jeopardy!