‘Going to be hard’: Saskatchewan Roughrider fans grapple with deaths ahead of game

REGINA – Some Saskatchewan Roughriders fans are heading into Thursday’s matchup against the Edmonton Elks with conflicting emotions, after a player and another man were killed in a highway crash.

For longtime Roughriders fan Kerri Ludvigsen, it’s the first time in decades a friend has told her she doesn’t feel like going to the game.

“She said, ‘It’s going to be so hard and my mind is split about it,’” Ludvigsen said Wednesday.

“I told her that just because something is hard or a challenge or difficult doesn’t mean you walk away from it.”

The players and coaching staff need all the support they can get, Ludvigsen added.

“(They) are grappling with a big loss with more questions and uncertainty than we are.”

Some in Rider Nation have been embroiled in online debates over the circumstances of the crash that killed Roughrider linebacker Jayden Dalke, 30, of Leduc, Alta., and Bhishma Rajyaguru, 22, of Regina.

RCMP have said Dalke was driving on the wrong side of a divided highway Saturday night when his SUV smashed into another SUV that Rajyaguru was driving. The vehicles had no passengers.

Police also said alcohol and cannabis were found in Dalke’s SUV, which pulled out of a gas station with unpaid fuel about a half-hour before the crash.

Both Dalke and Rajyaguru died at the scene on Highway 11 near the town of Lumsden, northwest of Regina.

On various social media platforms and team fan forums, some have speculated whether Dalke was driving while impaired.

Mounties have said autopsies and toxicology tests are being conducted. A spokesperson with Saskatchewan’s justice ministry has said such results are not publicly released because they contain personal health information.

Gerri Sernick, an administrator with the Saskatchewan Roughriders Fan Page on Facebook, said she has had to remove nasty comments about Dalke, including that he doesn’t deserve to be honoured by his team.

“It was truly awful. Since I started that page, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Sernick said in a message Tuesday.

“Judgment, speculation and hurtful remarks based on assumptions have no place on this Saskatchewan Roughrider fan page.

“Regardless of the circumstances, two young men are not going home to their families, and that is where our focus should remain.”

To keep decorum, other fan pages and forums closed comment sections on some posts.

Ludvigsen said police set off a “firestorm” when they released the details about alcohol and cannabis found in Dalke’s SUV. 

“People grieving (now) have to see … messages that are so hurtful and disrespectful,” she said.

The Roughriders have said they plan to honour both Dalke and Rajyaguru before Thursday’s game.

They also shared a GoFundMe page for Rajyaguru’s family, which had raised more than $88,000 as of Wednesday afternoon to cover the cost of repatriating his body to India. 

Rajyaguru came to Canada from the Indian state of Gujarat as an international student in 2022.

Jeremy O’Day, the Roughriders general manager, has said players are to wear Dalke’s initials on their helmets for the game.

Ludvigsen said she plans on going with her mother, and they’ll wear black jerseys instead of the Riders’ typical green and white.

“It’s going to be hard,” she said. “Honouring them both — I think it is great and needed.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2026.