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PJ’s Ponderings: Nathan Rourke, like Thomas Muller, is leading his team into the playoffs. He’s another lesson in how to be a superstar.
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Published Oct 18, 2025 • Last updated 1 day ago • 4 minute read
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B.C. Lions quarterback Nathan Rourke passes during the first half of a CFL football game against the Edmonton Elks Friday. Photo by DARRYL DYCK /THE CANADIAN PRESSArticle content
Everyone told me when I asked why Nathan Rourke was having such a remarkable year for the B.C. Lions, said that he had learned to dial it back.
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The grin on his face when I put the premise to him this week gave a quick response.
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Oh yes, he said.
“I’m trying to take things, to take myself a little less seriously,” he said. There’s a note for all athletes with aspirations of stardom.
The last time he and I had spoken, it was right after he broke his leg three years ago. A lot has happened since then, like going to the NFL. It was a wild experience, chasing the ultimate dream, but after a season with Jacksonville, he bounced across three teams — New England, the New York Giants, finally Atlanta — before he was released in training camp and then re-signed with the Lions in August 2024.
That run was hard. He had to adjust his brain to a new style of game, and a new style of thinking: when you’re fighting just to make the team, any misstep can hurt you.
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“If that rep didn’t go well, I might not be there next day. And I saw that,” he reflected. Back in the CFL, he’s a starter. He’s a guy that’s leaned on to win the game. There’s pressure to perform but it’s a different pressure.
“Every play, while it is important, is not a make or break situation. I had to relearn how to love the game again.”
“Every week I’m just trying to rediscover and trying to capture the love that I had when I was a kid.”
He didn’t figure this all out on his own. He worked with a sports psychologist. He had some great chats with his new head coach, Buck Pierce. Pierce works so hard he rarely sleeps, the QB realized. That’s about intensity and focus. But Pierce’s energy in directing his team also keeps things loose.
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“He comes with an attitude, like: ‘Guys, I just did something, and I’m super excited about it. I want to share it with you!’ That’s who he is,” Rourke said. “It’s fun to be around him. And he loves practice as much as I do. … It’s just fun to be around him, rather than a guy who’s like, super serious and on you all the time.”
Add it all up and there’s a fine line, between taking the job seriously but also remembering its just a game. It’s supposed to be fun, he said. To be successful fun is something you have to bring with you. It’s not something you earn. And yet you also can’t be too loose, so you have to have a serious focus at the same time.
“It’s a bit of chicken and egg situation. When you have fun, I think I play better. And when you’re winning, you’re having fun,” he said. No one wants to say they’re having fun while they’re losing, but to turn the losing around, you’d do well to find some fun anyway.”
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And more than anything, he’s learning to let go. Bad things are going to happen. Focus on what you can control. Calm yourself down in that effort to focus.
“What I remind myself of often is that people really don’t care as much as I think they do,” he said. “And so I think that that’s an important thing. It might not be as big of a deal as I think and that just kind of grounds me.”
Seriously what’s with the Canucks’ starts?
Struggles with how they start is a refrain we’ve heard a lot about the Vancouver Canucks in recent seasons, no matter who the coach is. It’s a truly baffling one.
The Canucks can’t keep falling behind; trying to fight your way back after a bad first period is going to wear you out. And the last week has seen the Canucks riding heavily on their goalies plus getting some scoring luck. That’s not a combination to lean on.
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No doubt Adam Foote and his staff are trying to sort out how to get the team moving right off the hop.
Are you an Ms fan?
One of the many bad things about allowing our media to be owned by just a couple of companies and then to have teams owned by those conglomerates is the decline of consumer choice.
There are thousands of Mariners fans in B.C. There are long-standing regional reasons for that. So I felt for them this week as they had baseball’s version of North Korean state TV jammed down their throats.
If the Mariners were playing any other team in the ALCS, Mariners fans would have some fun analysis to take in the moment for Eugenio Suarez’s grand slam on Friday night. Instead they had to deal with muted coverage from a purported national broadcaster.
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Jays fans are incredibly well served by Rogers but the fact Rogers doesn’t let you change feeds, despite that being an option in every other situation, isn’t exactly how baseball in general should be serving its fans.
And finally …
It’s wild to close this column with the greatest baseball player of all time, but you’ve read and talked about Shohei Ohtani enough already, so I’ll keep it simple. I really appreciate how the Washington Post’s Chelsea Janes put it. It’s along the lines of this: This is a guy whose comparables aren’t just the best in baseball, but the best in everything, and not just sports. Yes, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. But also Beethoven. Shakespeare. He’s the greatest ballplayer ever and he’s just had the greatest game ever — and he’s in the company of the greatest humans to have ever lived. Period.
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