The odds were not in favour of Jayden Dalke enjoying a successful CFL career but, in some ways, it seemed to be predestined.
As a junior football player with the Edmonton Wildcats, Jayden cheerfully scoured the stands and sold 50/50 tickets during CFL games at Commonwealth Stadium — where he and his family would eventually celebrate a career landmark.
“I was told that I sold the winning 50/50 ticket six times,” he said during a 2023 interview that preceded his second season with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. “That was over four years.
“This one lady came up to me and said, ‘You’re the one who sold me the 50/50 ticket,’ and then all of a sudden there was a lineup of 40 people.
“I said, ‘This is an absolute fluke. All you have to do is buy the $20 ticket so you have the best odds. This has nothing to do with me. I’m just a dude in an apron.’ ”
The “dude in an apron” returned to Commonwealth Stadium on June 11, 2023, when he began the season as the Roughriders’ starting safety.
On the final play before halftime, Jayden registered his first CFL interception — three days after his 27th birthday.
His parents, Ryan and Shannon, and more than 100 other family members were in the stands.
One cannot begin to comprehend what today is like for them.
Jayden was killed on Saturday night in a motor-vehicle accident. He was returning to Regina after spending the team’s bye week in his hometown of Leduc, Alta.
The Roughriders had a one-week break after defeating the visiting Hamilton Tiger-Cats 38-7 on July 12. Just the day before, I had chatted with Jayden about his return to the lineup after missing three games with a hand injury.
One of those contests was a July 3 game in Ottawa. Although Jayden did not make the trip, his parents were in the stands at TD Place. They had made travel arrangements before their son was injured in the June 13 regular-season opener against the B.C. Lions.
“The team came back and all of a sudden I saw (teammates Antoine Brooks Jr. and DaMarcus Fields). ’Toine said, ‘Oh yeah …. this is from your mom.’ He grabbed my head and kissed the top of my hat,” Jayden recalled just eight days ago.
The Travelling Dalkes went everywhere to watch Jayden play. You could not miss Ryan, Shannon and company when tailgating was introduced outside Mosaic Stadium on June 13.
The family was equally invested in the proceedings when Jayden spent four Prairie Football Conference seasons with the Wildcats before joining the University of Alberta Golden Bears.
After three seasons in Canada West, Dalke was selected by Saskatchewan in the sixth round (54th overall) of the 2022 CFL Canadian Draft.
He had impressed the Roughriders’ brass by taking part in the CFL Combine while recovering from a re-tearing of the medial collateral ligament in his left knee. The injury had been aggravated in the 2022 playoffs.
On top of that, Jayden had undergone surgery the previous July to remove the meniscus in his right knee.
But there he was at the Combine, giving 100 per cent despite being nowhere near that physically.
“I wasn’t able to fully trust (the left knee) and prepare entirely going into my Combine,” Jayden said a year later, “but I knew that I wanted to declare (for the Draft) and see where everything fell.”
He fell to the sixth round after completing the 40-yard dash in 4.86 seconds — a disappointing time for most people at his position, but an absolute eye-popper when you consider the condition of his knee(s) at the time.
“He’s one of my favourite Combine stories, because we can measure everything out there from a physical standpoint, but you can’t measure intangibles like heart and toughness and that’s what sets Jayden apart from some others,” Kyle Carson, the Roughriders’ Assistant General Manager and Director of Player Personnel, remembered in 2023.
Jayden, a team captain, became one of only six Roughriders sixth-round selections to see regular-season duty after being chosen by the team in Round 6. Dating back to 1958, the team has made 58 sixth-round selections.
Among sixth-rounders, only long-snapper/offensive lineman Jocelyn Frenette (137 games) suited up for Saskatchewan more often than Jayden and offensive lineman Dan Comiskey (68 games in each case).
Beyond that, Jayden was in the lineup for three playoff contests and, of course, the 2025 Grey Cup.
Proudly wearing No. 38 as a member of the linebacking corps with the West Division champions, he helped the Roughriders defeat the Montreal Alouettes 25-17 in Winnipeg and celebrate the fifth championship in franchise history — and the first since 2013.
“It was a 12-year drought for me, too,” recalled Jayden, who in Grade 11 helped the 2013 Leduc Tigers win a Metro Edmonton High School Athletics championship.
The Roughriders’ 2025 championship season was eventful for Jayden — and typical of him — in many respects.
As always, he was a factor on punt and kickoff coverage, as evidenced by his career-high total of 13 special teams tackles.
True to form, there was a story of perseverance.
He was in the hospital for part of the 60th Labour Day Classic, in which Saskatchewan defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 34-30 at Mosaic Stadium.
“On one of the kickoffs, I kind of got blocked in the back and tangled up while running full speed,” Jayden recounted a few days later.
“I don’t know how I landed. I look at it and it’s still cloudy on film, but I hurt my neck and shoulder. I got up to try to finish the play and my whole arm was on fire and on pins and needles.
“All of a sudden, it just started throbbing, so I thought something was up with my shoulder. The doctors checked me out and I still had my strength, but they were concerned that the numbness and tingling was still throughout my hand.
“They thought I had possibly broken something in my neck, so we had to put a collar on. Then the team doctor drove me over to the hospital.”
He arrived in full equipment, underwent a series of tests, received clearance to resume playing, and returned to the stadium.
“I came back in the third quarter,” he said, “and I got to finish the game.”
Jayden soon received formal recognition of his efforts when Pro Football Focus awarded him the highest grade (90.3) of any CFL player who performed on special teams during Week 13 of the 2025 season.
His efforts transcended numbers, as impressive as they were, and due recognition was given.
Jayden was chosen to take the lead in the traditional post-game branding exercise.
After each win, the Roughriders use a customized branding iron to burn a new digit into a piece of wood that at the start of last season was posted above the entrance to the tunnel. A key contributor is chosen to perform the branding shortly after the post-game team meeting.
In that instance, a one-time 54th-overall Draft pick was the first choice to handle the duties on Aug. 31.
“That speaks volumes to his teammates and everyone in the building,” Head Coach Corey Mace said in early September of last year. “I love Dalks.”
We all do.