{"id":940574,"date":"2026-10-20T22:42:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T22:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/940574\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T22:42:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T22:42:17","slug":"b-c-lions-to-sit-rourke-start-salter-vs-blue-bombers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/940574\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. Lions to sit Rourke, start Salter vs. Blue Bombers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">SURREY \u2014 The B.C. Lions will start Kaidon Salter at quarterback for their regular-season finale against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Head coach Buck Pierce said he&#8217;s giving regular starter Nathan Rourke the night off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">&#8220;You&#8217;re always thinking team first in the situation that you&#8217;re in,&#8221; Pierce said after practice on Tuesday. &#8220;And we feel confident with the guys, and we feel good about where we&#8217;re at.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">B.C. (10-7) has already locked up second place in the CFL&#8217;s West Division and the right to host the divisional semifinal on Oct. 31, while Winnipeg (8-9) needs a victory to secure a post-season berth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Rourke \u2014 the CFL&#8217;s reigning outstanding player and outstanding Canadian \u2014 has put up 4,614 passing yards for the Lions this season with 24 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, despite missing two games with a shoulder injury. He has also rushed for 356 yards with three majors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Salter stepped in for the injured Rourke and led the Lions to a 35-19 road victory in Winnipeg on July 30.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The experience came with lessons, Salter said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">&#8220;Just being able to take my time and go through my reads, and whenever something wasn&#8217;t there, I was able to use my legs,&#8221; he said. &#8220;So just knowing that they have a very big and physical defence, they&#8217;re going to come out and they&#8217;re going to fight and they&#8217;re going to play hard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">&#8220;They&#8217;re a team that plays to the end, so we just got to go out there and do the same.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 23-year-old American also came in for Rourke in the second half of B.C.&#8217;s 32-13 loss to the Stampeders in Calgary on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Salter has 330 passing yards with one touchdown and one interception this season, his first CFL campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He could share snaps with B.C.&#8217;s latest quarterback addition on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Lions signed former Kansas City Chiefs QB Chris Oladokun to the practice roster on Sept. 21.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 29-year-old American has yet to get into a game, but said he&#8217;s learned a lot about the CFL in recent weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a lot of fun,&#8221; Oladokun said on Tuesday. &#8220;I&#8217;m still getting caught up on some of the clock stuff because that&#8217;s a little new. But there&#8217;s just so much space out there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">&#8220;And when you have great playmakers like we do, the quarterbacks \u2026 are really just like a point guard. You&#8217;re just trying to dish the ball out to your playmakers and let them go be special guys. So that&#8217;s been the thing that&#8217;s stuck out the most being up here.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 20, 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SURREY \u2014 The B.C. Lions will start Kaidon Salter at quarterback for their regular-season finale against the Winnipeg&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-940574","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\/940574","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=940574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}