The gay thing was the first thing that popped into my mind too. I guess we’ll all have to update our references though, sadly enough. 
One possibly relevant point: the intro for the champ says that he’s “originally from Seattle.” That means he may live in L.A. I believe the assumption is that they announce original home towns because there are so many from the local area, and they just want to make it sound like they’re not just picking any random Californian for every single contestant spot.
I think he looks like Michael Phelps.
Eh, Alex has a lot of jokes that fall flat. I doubt he was making a gay joke though.
There is someone worse than Alex with the bad ad lib/jokes, Pat Sajak. Occasionally, I catch Wheel of Fortune because it comes on before Jeopardy but I usually try to avoid it because of all the idiots buying vowels when they don’t need to, stupid! Anyway, Pat is just painful to watch, especially at the end of the show when he tries to ad lib for a few seconds.
A Texan, a Californian, and a guy from Seattle are drinking in a bar. The Texan throws a beer bottle in the air, whips out his sixgun, shoots the bottle, and whoops, “That’s what we do to Democrats in Texas!”
Following his lead, the Californian throws a bottle, pulls a 9mm out of his pants, shoots the bottle, and yells, “In California, that’s what we do to Republicans!”
Not wanting to feel left out, the guy from Seattle throws a bottle, grabs the Texan’s pistol, shoots the Californian, snatches the bottle in midair, and says, “In Seattle that’s what we do to Californians, but we really should recycle that bottle.”
Oh, and another vote for the obscure hockey reference. Trebek’s Canadian and I don’t imagine the reference is all that obscure up there.