5 Things To Know | Western Semi-Final
It’s a playoff rematch ripe with storylines. For the third consecutive season, the BC Lions’ path to the Grey Cup runs through the Saskatchewan Roughriders. It’s a tale of two teams that took slightly different roads to this Halloween battle.
Following a dismal 1-5 start, Nathan Rourke and the Lions exploded over the final two-thirds of the season to win nine of ten games to lock up homefield advantage for this Western Semi-Final. That included a pair of crucial home wins over these Riders in Weeks 12 and 17. The defending Grey Cup champs hit a rougher patch in the later stages. Following a 6-3 start, they went just 4-5 in the second half to fall to third place. The past won’t matter now. It’s a one-game showdown between two championship contenders, with the right to go to Edmonton the following week. With more, we present our 5 Things To Know Preview.
Western Semi-Final: Saskatchewan Roughriders (10-8) at BC Lions (10-8). Saturday, October 31. Kickoff: 1:30 pm, Save-On-Foods Field at BC Place. TV: TSN, RDS. Stream: CFL+ (U.S. & International). Radio: 730 CKNW, Lions Audio Network, Sher-E-Punjab Radio AM 600, SiriusXM Canada Talks 167.
Home Is Where The Heart Is
Saturday marks the Lions’ fifth straight appearance in the Western Semi-Final with all but a 2024 loss to Saskatchewan taking place at home. The Lions were victorious over the Calgary Stampeders in 2022, 2023 and 2025. Overall, the franchise has won its last four home playoff games and seven of ten overall since the turn of the century. Earning a chance to start the playoffs on home turf is a great accomplishment for a battle-tested team that had to overcome a bad start. It’s time to take advantage of the hard work it took to get here. They know what happened in the regular season is in the rearview mirror.
Balanced Offence Will Win The Day
It’s hard not to froth at the mouth when looking at how stacked this Lions receiving corps. can be on any given week. The aerial attack will be important. But should the Lions hope to go on a three-week-long run, they’re going to have to do just that. A balanced attack with production from Zander Horvath and James Butler gives them a huge upper hand at home and will be relied upon should they get the opportunity to go outside in the cold. The Lions finished the regular season second to Edmonton with 2,136 rushing yards. Setting up Rourke with more second-and-short situations opens up the playbook even more. Should they be successful, everyone must contribute.
Containing The Riders’ Three-Headed Monster
Speaking of receivers, It’s been rare this season to see Saskatchewan’s big three playmakers at receiver all active at the same time: KeeSean Johnson, Kian Schaeffer-Baker and Samuel Emilus will all be in uniform and it provides the Lion secondary with an exciting chess match opportunity when it comes to covering and containing this potent receiving corps. Johnson and Schaeffer-Baker both surpassed 1,000 yards, while Emilus had 582 in nine regular season appearances, including 91 yards and three touchdowns in the season-opening 31-27 win over the Lions. This secondary is much better than it was that day. They will take great pride in neutralizing the Riders’ playmakers.
Zander Horvath and the Lions clash with Saskatchewan in the Western Semi-Final.
Field Position Looms Large
A big turning point in last year’s playoff victory over the Calgary Stampeders was a fourth-quarter kick return touchdown from Robert Carter Jr. that blew the roof off of BC Place. We’re not suggesting the Lions need another one of those on Saturday, but one key element of this game will be both the returners and coverage units paving the way for some better drive starts for Rourke and the offence. The Lions finished at the bottom of the league in both kickoff and punt return average. What a story it would be to have a big turnaround and better field position starting this weekend? With Seven McGee back on the injured list, it will be the likes of Carter, Jermaine Jackson and possibly Kieran Poissant handling the returns.
The depth chart for Western-Semi-Final.
What They’re Saying
“We’re just hungry. This team is hungry, man. We’re dogs trying to eat. We’ve been eating all year and we’re going to continue to eat and we’re going to feast, man. We’re just excited for the opportunity and I think also coming from how this team started; 1-5 and getting heavily scrutinized; coaches, players, fans and then we turned things around and turned into one of the hottest teams in the league. I think we kind of hold ourselves kind of like with of a chip on our shoulder. We understand that we’re all we’ve got, we all we need. All the guys in that locker room is all you really need to win games. Because when we were 1-5, that’s all we had. No one else new came. We just had to figure it all our ourselves.”- Darnell Sankey on being in this position after starting slow.
“There are different types of players come playoff time. We get excited for the playoffs. We’ve talked about it since the off-season, since training camp, that this is where we want to be. Big-time players step up in these moments. We’ve got to make sure we do what we’ve got to do.”- Jevon Cottoy on the task at hand.
The Lions will hold additional media availabilities later on Friday at BC Place. Those can be viewed at the club’s YouTube channel.
Extra Points
Counting a best-of-three Western Final series won by the Lions in 1963, these rivals have faced each other in 14 playoff games in their history. Other significant wins for the Lions include home Western Finals in 2004 and 2006, along with Western Semi-Finals in Regina in 1988 and 2008. Saturday marks the first time they will host Saskatchewan in the Division Semi-Final.
The Lions enter this weekend a perfect 6-0 at home in the Western Semi-Final, having beaten Winnipeg in 1977, 1981 and 2016 and Calgary in 2022, 2023 and 2025.
The most significant lineup notes for the home team come on defence. Most Outstanding Rookie Parker McKenna on the shelf due to a head injury. Those are big shoes to fill with Adam Konar and recently signed American Wesley Steiner expected to share the load at WILL linebacker. Veteran cornerback Garry Peters suits up for just the third time this season, in place of Stantley Thomas-Oliver (hip). The interior of the defence sees the return of Jonah Tavai.
About that Lion run defence: they ended the regular season allowing a CFL-low 71.3 rushing yards per game. That's the third-lowest total in franchise history and it's the first time since 2012 they've had the CFL's top run defence.
Keep an eye on Keon Hatcher Sr.: in seven career playoff games, Hatch has hauled in 34 receptions for 663 yards and three touchdowns. On three occasions, he has recorded 100 or more yards in the playoffs.