Dyakowski eyes Grey Cup double Jeopardy
REGINA — The worrisome part of having an April date to appear as a contestant on the game show Jeopardy, says Canada’s Smartest Person, is that he has a couple of weak areas in his storehouse of knowledge.
“Uh, you know, contemporary interior decorators, female authors of the 1970s ...,” Peter Dyakowski said Thursday, at the Hamilton TigerCats’ team breakfast with the Grey Cup media.
“I’m hoping for some categories like CFL history, Tim Hortons pastries, and British Columbia geography.”
The 28-year-old Vancouver native with the Mensa-level I.Q., who last year was crowned champion of CBC’s Canada’s Smartest Person televised contest, starts at left guard for the Tiger-Cats, who meet the Saskatchewan Roughriders in Sunday’s Grey Cup game at Mosaic Stadium.
“I’d much rather win the Grey Cup than Jeopardy,” said the six-foot-five, 315-pound lineman, “but I’m being greedy and hoping for both.”
Dyakowski, who attended Vancouver College — the same school that produced B.C. Lions centre Angus Reid, Montreal Alouettes Shea Emry, retired Montreal star Bryan Chiu and many other CFL players — before earning a scholarship to Louisiana State University, is probably second only to Hamilton quarterback Henry Burris as the most soughtafter interview this week, owing to his approachability and wit.
He won the CBC contest in March 2012 against a molecular biologist, a theoretical quantum chemist, and “a spoken-word artist in the fields of physical, musical, logical, linguistic, visual, and interpersonal intelligence,” and says he has been “totally obnoxious about it” with his teammates ever since.
“The guys have fun with it. They give me a hard time now and then, especially if I get something wrong,” he said.
Asked what sorts of questions he had to answer, Dyakowski joked that he couldn’t remember: “It’s almost a year ago. I’ve been hit in the head a lot.”