Andy Saunders figures he's seen most of the over 8,200 episodes of Jeopardy! that were hosted by Alex Trebek.
The Guelph man's passion for the show has led to him running The Jeopardy! Fan, a fan site that attracts 25,000 visitors a day from all over the world.
Saunders has been a fan of the game show since he was a toddler, when his dad would tape episodes during the week on a VCR and the family would watch them all on the weekend.
The death of Trebek on the weekend has shaken him and other Jeopardy! lovers.
"When I first heard the news it was TMZ and I thought 'well, they've been wrong before,'" Saunders said of hearing that Trebek died on the weekend after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
"Then the show confirmed it. It was just shock. Devastation."
Saunders, a freelance bookkeeper, digital content creator, trivia writer and author of two books on baseball history, began writing for The Jeopardy! Fan, which was started by a woman in Nebraska in 2010, in 2012 and took over full operation of the site in 2015.
Since 2014, he has hosted #JeopardyLivePanel, a weekly podcast interviewing past contestants about their experiences on the program.
Saunders has never appeared on the show but has auditioned to be a contestant unsuccessfully on four occasions, the last time being in 2017.
He won't be allowed to audition again due to the fact that he's done some side work for Jeopardy! contestant legend Ken Jennings, who now does some work for the show as a consulting producer. That connection eliminates Saunders as a candidate.
In 2017 Saunders got to meet Trebek while auditioning for the show in Toronto. Trebek, on his way to Ottawa to collect his Order of Canada, stopped in to say hello, answering questions and posing for photos.
"I was awestruck," he remembers. "He came across to me as the same sort of person as he was on television – very genuine."
Saunders said that genuineness is what made him so well-loved by viewers.
He was amazed at how Trebek continued filming episodes of the show up until just two weeks ago.
"He loved the show. He was hurting, but he still wanted to do it."
Saunders expects the rest of this season to continue with a guest host at some point before a new full-time host is found.
"It will definitely feel different, that's for sure," Saunders said of a new host. "But Alex would certainly want the show to continue."
He said if you want to get a glimpse of what that might feel like, look up the April Fool's Day episode from 1987 where Trebek and Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak switched places.
"It's still going to be a good game," Saunders said of someone else in Trebek's role. "But it's going to take some getting used to it being hosted by someone else."
