A Vancouver-area teacher went from answering students' questions to answering Alex Trebek in the form of a question when he appeared on "Jeopardy!" this week.
Ali Hasan, a teacher at Surrey's Guildford Park Secondary, has won US$67,801 in his first three days on the game show – or about $90,235 in Canadian dollars.
He finished Thursday's episode with $20,999, which was added to the $46,802 he'd racked up earlier in the week.
"That's American," the show's Canuck host joked of the prize.
While the episodes are airing this week, Hasan's already back in the classroom where the show had students on the edge of their seats.
"It's the last week of school so all they can talk about is me being on 'Jeopardy!'" he said.
In the first episode, he beat out the former champion, an attorney and editor from Washington State, and a student from California. On day two, he defeated a novelist and teacher from California and an insurance underwriter from Massachusetts.
The resident of New Westminster emerged the victor again Thursday, beating a grants manager from Maryland and an assistant principal from Florida. He'll be back on the show Friday to try to extend his reign a fourth day.
At one point on Tuesday's episode, the computer science teacher worried he'd lost it all in final Jeopardy when asked about the sender of a congratulatory telegram in 1948.
But his answer – "Who is Dewey?" – earned him $20,401 and a "Way to go, Ali!" from fellow Canuck Trebek.
"There were some Canadians in the audience and they came to me and said, 'That was the best ending,' having a Canadian lose at all the America questions and then beat the Americans on American history," he said in Surrey Thursday.
During the first three days, Hasan answered questions on topics ranging from an Ashton Kutcher reality TV show to the fall of Constantinople.
He was the only contestant to get the right answer on the first two days' final jeopardies, but all three got the last question wrong on Thursday.
A self-proclaimed "big nerd," he told Trebek how he proposed to his wife using Scrabble tiles.
"She was so excited, she ran to her mother. She didn't even say yes," he laughed during the part of the show where the host chats with contestants.
"Was it on a triple word—we won't get in to that," Trebek joked back.
Another day, the host asked Hasan about auditioning, and the teacher revealed the questions on the show weren't his only challenge.
"I was supposed to go to Seattle because, you know, it's right next to British Columbia, and I had just gotten my citizenship," the former resident of Bahrain said.
"When I went to the train station, they said they had to check to make sure I was who I said I was. And that took about five hours, and by that time, my train was long gone to Washington."
He ended up auditioning in San Francisco, a decision that so far has paid off.
Hasan said this has been his dream since before he immigrated to Canada in 2010: "I've wanted to be on the show for 25 years."
On the second day, Hasan shared the story behind his daughter's unusual middle name, Titanic.
His wife's godmother was born on the day the ship sank, and her parents decided to commemorate the event. His wife was given the strange moniker, and decided to carry on the tradition when their daughter Frankie was born.
Hasan isn't the first B.C. resident to win big on the popular show.
Squamish teacher Andrew Haringer won five games before losing a sixth in 2015, earning a total of US$98,599.
And Bob Blake, from Vancouver, was a five-time, undefeated champion who won more than US$75,000 when he appeared on the show in September 1989.
"I don't know if I can say that I'm as good as (Blake) was," Hasan said.
But his students think he has what it takes to go all the way.
"I'm pretty confident in his ability to continue. He seems to know his stuff," Grade 11 student Anthony Duong said.
With files from CTV Vancouver's Allison Hurst
