for the Saskatchewan Roughriders against the visiting B.C. Lions.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cIt has been a very long journey for me to get to this point, so I\u2019m very excited to get the chance to play for the Roughriders,\u201d the 28-year-old Australian-born kicker said after Tuesday\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an amazing team and an amazing place to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s CFL game is set for 5 p.m., at Mosaic Stadium. Fans will want to arrive early for a 2025 Grey Cup championship banner unveiling that is to precede the opening kickoff.<\/p>\n
Although Hale wasn\u2019t with the Roughriders last season, he already possesses impressive championship credentials.<\/p>\n
As a teenager, he won a gold medal at the world junior (under-19) wakeskating championships in Abu Dhabi, Dubai. Wakeskating is a hybrid of wakeboarding and skateboarding.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up by the waters and I grew up surfing,\u201d Hale recalled. \u201cIt\u2019s just something I\u2019ve always been interested in. I love water sports and board sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just a hobby at first. Then I got better and better and looked into competitions. I loved competing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not to mention the adrenalin rush.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was flying around at 30 miles an hour, off jumps and rails and stuff,\u201d Hale continued. \u201cIt was definitely good fun. I haven\u2019t done it in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hale\u2019s first sporting passion was soccer, which he played for about 10 years until turning his attention to wakeskating.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Australia, there was a program that started for the 2022 World Cup,\u201d he said. \u201cThey gathered all the good junior soccer players and grouped them together to try to start the development early. I was in that group, training three or four times a week from the age of 10 years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very serious early on. (Soccer) is another sport I love.\u201d<\/p>\n
After high school \u2014 and already an accomplished athlete in two disciplines \u2014 Hale turned his attention to kicking North American-style footballs.<\/p>\n
With the objective of mastering a third sport, he moved to California and began training with former NFL placement specialist John Carney \u2014 who now mentors kickers and punters.<\/p>\n
A quick study, Hale developed his kicking skills to the point where U.S. college football was an option.<\/p>\n
He joined the Oklahoma State Cowboys as a walk-on in 2018 and was redshirted that season. In 2019, he dressed for two games and handled kickoffs.<\/p>\n
A breakout year followed in 2020, when he went 13-for-14 on field-goal attempts \u2014 a 92.9-per-cent accuracy rate \u2014 before suffering a season-ending knee injury during warmups for the Cowboys\u2019 seventh game of the season.<\/p>\n
Hale played in six games during the 2021 season (going 3-for-6) before focusing on kickoffs in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of athletes go through struggles and injuries,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s important to have a good support system \u2014 a good family and good people around you. You just focus on the goal, rehab as hard as you train, and eventually you get back to where you want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hale was reinstalled as Oklahoma State\u2019s placekicker in 2023, going 27-for-34 (79.4%) and leading the NCAA in field goals per game (2.08). Three of his three-pointers exceeded 50 yards (53, 53, 52).<\/p>\n
For the second time, Hale was a semi-finalist for the Lou Groza Award, which is presented annually to the best kicker in U.S. college football.<\/p>\n
After graduating from Oklahoma State, Hale had stints with the Green Bay Packers in 2024 and 2025. He signed with Saskatchewan on April 17 and, over the course of training camp and the pre-season, outlasted American-born kickers Michael Hughes and Jonathan Kim.<\/p>\n
While pleased to make the final roster, Hale didn\u2019t respond to the good news in demonstrative fashion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t mean this in a bad way, but he\u2019s emotionless when he\u2019s out there,\u201d Head Coach Corey Mace said. \u201cHe\u2019s not going to get rattled. He\u2019s going to stay the course.<\/p>\n
\u201cI asked him, \u2018Where do you want the ball? On what hash?\u2019 He said, \u2018It doesn\u2019t matter.\u2019 He\u2019s dialled, man, and he\u2019s a pro\u2019s pro. He\u2019s very meticulous in what he likes to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been pleased with the kid and we look forward to his season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mace\u2019s characterization of Hale as \u201cemotionless\u201d is in line with a nickname \u2014 Iceman \u2014 that was applied by his soccer coach, once upon a time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat has always been my mindset,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m definitely very serious. On the outside, I probably just look laid-back and relaxed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very excited. I may not show that sometimes, but I definitely am.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hale is in the forecast for Saturday. Alex Hale is to make his pro football regular-season debut this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-729646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}