The odds\u00a0were not in favour\u00a0of\u00a0Jayden Dalke enjoying\u00a0a successful\u00a0CFL career but, in\u00a0some ways, it\u00a0seemed to be\u00a0predestined.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a\u00a0junior football player\u00a0with the\u00a0Edmonton Wildcats,\u00a0Jayden\u00a0cheerfully\u00a0scoured\u00a0the stands and\u00a0sold 50\/50 tickets during CFL games at Commonwealth Stadium\u00a0\u2014 where he and his family would eventually celebrate a career landmark.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was told that I sold the winning 50\/50 ticket six times,\u201d\u00a0he said during a 2023 interview that preceded his second season with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. \u201cThat was over four years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis one lady came up to me and said, \u2018You\u2019re the one who sold me the 50\/50 ticket,\u2019 and then\u00a0all of a sudden\u00a0there was a lineup of 40 people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018This is an absolute fluke. All you have to do is buy the $20\u00a0ticket\u00a0so you have the best odds. This has nothing to do with me.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0just\u00a0a dude\u00a0in an apron.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The \u201cdude in an apron\u201d returned to Commonwealth Stadium on\u00a0June 11, 2023, when he began the season as the Roughriders\u2019 starting safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the final play before halftime,\u00a0Jayden\u00a0registered his first CFL interception\u00a0\u2014 three days after\u00a0his 27th\u00a0birthday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His parents,\u00a0Ryan\u00a0and Shannon, and more than 100 other family\u00a0members were in the stands.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One\u00a0cannot begin to\u00a0comprehend\u00a0what today is like for them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jayden was killed on Saturday night\u00a0in\u00a0a motor-vehicle accident. He was returning to\u00a0Regina\u00a0after spending\u00a0the team\u2019s\u00a0bye week in his hometown of Leduc, Alta.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Roughriders had a one-week break after\u00a0defeating the visiting Hamilton Tiger-Cats 38-7 on July 12.\u00a0Just the day before, I had chatted with Jayden about his return to the lineup after missing three games with a hand injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of those contests was a July 3 game in Ottawa. Although Jayden did\u00a0not\u00a0make 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team came back and\u00a0all of\u00a0a\u00a0sudden\u00a0I saw (teammates Antoine Brooks Jr. and DaMarcus Fields). \u2019Toine said, \u2018Oh\u00a0yeah\u00a0\u2026. this is from your mom.\u2019 He grabbed my head and kissed the top of my hat,\u201d Jayden recalled just eight days ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Travelling\u00a0Dalkes\u00a0went everywhere to watch Jayden play.\u00a0You could not miss Ryan,\u00a0Shannon\u00a0and\u00a0company\u00a0when tailgating\u00a0was introduced\u00a0outside Mosaic Stadium on June 13.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After three seasons in Canada West, Dalke was selected by Saskatchewan in the sixth round (54th\u00a0overall) of the 2022 CFL Canadian Draft.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He had impressed the Roughriders\u2019 brass by taking part in the CFL Combine while recovering\u00a0from\u00a0a re-tearing of the\u00a0medial collateral ligament in his left knee.\u00a0The injury had been aggravated in the 2022 playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On top of that, Jayden had undergone surgery the previous July to remove the meniscus in his right knee.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there he was at the Combine, giving 100 per cent despite being nowhere near that physically.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t able to fully trust (the left knee) and prepare entirely going into my Combine,\u201d Jayden said a year later, \u201cbut I knew that I wanted to declare (for the Draft) and see where everything fell.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He fell to the sixth round after completing the 40-yard dash in 4.86 seconds \u2014 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s one of my favourite Combine stories, because we can measure everything out there from a physical standpoint, but you can\u2019t measure intangibles like heart and toughness and that\u2019s what sets Jayden apart from some others,\u201d\u00a0Kyle Carson, the Roughriders\u2019 Assistant General Manager and Director of Player Personnel, remembered in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jayden, a team captain,\u00a0became one of only six Roughriders sixth-round selections to see regular-season duty after being chosen by the team in Round 6.\u00a0Dating back to 1958, the team has made 58 sixth-round selections.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Among\u00a0sixth-rounders, only long-snapper\/offensive lineman Jocelyn Frenette (137 games) suited up for Saskatchewan more often than Jayden and offensive lineman Dan Comiskey\u00a0(68 games in each case).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beyond that, Jayden\u00a0was in the lineup for\u00a0three playoff contests and, of course, the 2025 Grey Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Proudly wearing No. 38\u00a0as a member of the linebacking corps\u00a0with\u00a0the West Division champions, he helped the Roughriders defeat the Montreal Alouettes 25-17 in Winnipeg and celebrate the fifth championship in franchise history\u00a0\u2014 and the first since 2013.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a 12-year drought for me, too,\u201d recalled Jayden, who in Grade 11 helped the 2013 Leduc Tigers win a Metro Edmonton High School Athletics championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Roughriders\u2019 2025 championship season was eventful for Jayden \u2014 and typical of him \u2014 in many respects.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As always, he was a\u00a0factor\u00a0on punt and kickoff coverage, as\u00a0evidenced\u00a0by his career-high total of 13 special\u00a0teams\u00a0tackles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
True to form, there was a story of perseverance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was in the hospital for part of the 60th\u00a0Labour Day Classic, in which Saskatchewan defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 34-30 at Mosaic Stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOn one of the kickoffs, I kind of got blocked in the back and tangled up while running full speed,\u201d\u00a0Jayden recounted a few days later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know how I landed. I look at it and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0still 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\u00a0on pins and needles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey thought I had\u00a0possibly broken\u00a0something in my neck, so we had to put a collar on. Then the team doctor drove me over to the hospital.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He arrived in full equipment, underwent a series of tests, received clearance to resume playing, and returned to the stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI came back in the third quarter,\u201d he said, \u201cand I got to finish the game.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
His efforts transcended numbers, as impressive as they were, and due recognition was given.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jayden\u00a0was chosen to\u00a0take the lead in the traditional post-game branding exercise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After each win, the Roughriders use a customized\u00a0branding iron to burn a new digit into a piece of wood\u00a0that at the start of last season was posted\u00a0above the entrance to the tunnel. A\u00a0key contributor is chosen to perform the branding shortly after the post-game team meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In that instance, a one-time\u00a054th-overall Draft pick\u00a0was\u00a0the\u00a0first\u00a0choice to\u00a0handle the duties\u00a0on Aug. 31.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat speaks volumes to his teammates and everyone in the building,\u201d Head Coach Corey Mace said\u00a0in early September of last year. \u201cI love\u00a0Dalks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
We all do.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The odds\u00a0were not in favour\u00a0of\u00a0Jayden Dalke enjoying\u00a0a successful\u00a0CFL career but, in\u00a0some ways, it\u00a0seemed to be\u00a0predestined.\u00a0 As a\u00a0junior football…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-812802","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\/812802","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=812802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}