Schaffer-Baker can’t mask his excitement about remaining a Rider

Until the summer of 2021, Kian Schaffer-Baker had never spent as much as a millisecond in Saskatchewan.

Now he is one of the most popular people in a province that has become a second home.

Hence the merriment when the Saskatchewan Roughriders announced that the 27-year-old receiver, who had been eligible to test free agency in February, had signed a contract extension that will secure his services through the 2027 CFL season.

“There’s only one place I wanted to be,” Schaffer-Baker said on Tuesday, “and that was in Saskatchewan.”

Even though it took a while to get here.

Ideally, the former University of Guelph Gryphons pass-catcher would have made his professional football debut a few weeks after being selected in the fourth round (30th overall) of the 2020 CFL draft.

Alas, COVID-19 forced the cancellation of the 2020 CFL season.

And a delayed start to a shortened 2021 campaign.

The year’s first training-camp workout was held in a bubble-like environment on July 10. As a point of reference, the 2025 Roughriders’ fifth regular-season game was imminent on July 10.

Whereas the engaging Schaffer-Baker has been a magnet for fans who share in Rider Nation’s celebration of a 2025 Grey Cup title, he was largely anonymous in this part of the world when he first donned green and white at Mosaic Stadium.

That would soon change.

A Regina Leader-Post headline from July 24, 2021 read that “Schaffer-Baker looks like a playmaker.” That assessment was offered 13 days before the Roughriders, without the benefit of a pre-season game, played host to the B.C. Lions and thereby ended a 21-month intermission.

Schaffer-Baker had to wait a little longer. He did not appear on the active roster until the Roughriders’ third game of 2021. He quickly made an impression, catching four passes for 64 yards in a 23-10 victory over the visiting Ottawa REDBLACKS.

Playing in 11 of the Roughriders’ 14 regular-season games, Schaffer-Baker caught 47 passes for 563 yards and two touchdowns en route to being named the team’s Most Outstanding Rookie.

It was quite an ascent for someone who, barely a year earlier, was waiting out a global pandemic at home in Mississauga, Ont.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen,” he reflected. “I had to get a job at that point. But I just kept the faith and kept working every single day. That’s what has gotten me to this point.”

Once he did arrive in Saskatchewan, there was a new world to navigate in another context.

“It was definitely a different time,” Schaffer-Baker said. “We had to wear a mask all the time and get swabbed up the nose every morning. I was sneezing for the first 10 minutes every day, walking in.

“You didn’t know what was going to happen during that process. You didn’t know if you were going to make the team or what your role was going to be. You’re really just trying to carve out your identity during that time.

“It didn’t really hit until that first game. It was COVID, so I didn’t see anyone the entire time. But at that first game, the crowd was rockin’ and that’s when I fell in love with it.

“I just knew this was going to be my place forever.”

Those sentiments were as prophetic as, well, the Leader-Post headline.

Schaffer-Baker was named the Roughriders’ Most Outstanding Canadian in 2022.

In the 2024 Western Final, he caught 12 passes — the most by a Roughrider in a playoff game — for 162 yards against the host Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

When the Roughriders returned to the Western Final in 2025, Schaffer-Baker scored Saskatchewan’s first touchdown in a 25-17 victory over B.C.

The Corey Mace-coached Roughriders were crowned Grey Cup champions eight days later at Princess Auto Stadium in Winnipeg.

“That has been a dream from the first day you walk in here,” Schaffer-Baker said. “It had been a long time since we’d got one — 12 years — and a long wait.

“It’s something that the whole province deserves … all of Saskatchewan. I remember Coach Corey just saying in a video that it’s not even about himself or so much the guys in the locker room. Obviously, we wanted to get the job done, but it was for all of Saskatchewan.

“It was for all the people who have believed in us and who have had our backs from Day 1. Just going out there and proving to them and proving to ourselves that we’re the best, you’re faced with that test every single day.

“You’re faced with that test every single day: ‘Are you going to be the best?’ I believe it’s still our time and we’re going to keep rolling with it.”