It’s extremely early days, but if and when Peter Boersch ends up starting his Canadian Football League career, 2007 Grey Cup champion and former Saskatchewan Roughriders running back Wes Cates sees some favourable comparisons for the Regina Thunder star.
Boersch was invited to this year’s Riders training camp as a territorial junior after being named the Prairie Football Conference’s most valuable player for 2025.
He made his CFL preseason debut Monday against the Calgary Stampeders and was not called on to run the ball but did catch two passes from Brayden Schager late in the fourth quarter, gaining 18 yards in all, including a 13-yard catch-and-run on third-and-10.
“Boersch kind of reminds me of a little bit smaller Jesse Lumsden,” Cates said on the Rider Broadcast Network’s pre-game show Monday. “He runs a little straight up, a little too vertical, but then he's always falling forward. So you're like ‘I guess I'll give you a pass on that, even though you're a little upright.’ Jon Cornish is another one.”
Lumsden played parts of six seasons (2005-10) with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Edmonton Elks and Calgary, and was named an East Division all-star in 2007.
Cornish played nine seasons with Calgary, leading the league in rushing yards three consecutive years (2012-14), winning two Grey Cups and – in 2013 – setting the CFL single-season record for most rushing yards by a Canadian en route to being named the league’s most outstanding player.
Really, the praise doesn’t get much loftier.
“He's got some sweet feet,” Cates said of Boersch. “He can pick ‘em up, put ‘em down. He's a bit of a slasher, too. I just want to see if the game speed of going up a level, if he can keep up, but what he was doing to the kids at his level in (junior), I'm like ‘Yeah, this kid knows what he's doing.’”
Boersch’s own MVP season saw him run for 1,327 yards and four touchdowns in eight Canadian Junior Football League regular season games last year – averaging 165.9 yards per game and 7.6 yards per carry – before adding 109 yards and a touchdown in two playoff games.
Cates added that – looking long term – the 21-year-old’s birth certificate may also work in his favour.
“Something about being up here playing in Canadian football that helps you kind of just know that play or that typical zone read, run play, quarterback option run zone. Canadians seem to kind of just naturally read it out and run it a little better,” Cates said.
“It's a little different style than coming up from the States and always kind of trying to hit things fast and be more downhill. And I think Canadians have more of a knack for just naturally finding the holes in the CFL systems.”
Or, just maybe, his time is closer than one might think.
“Getting around some better competition, I think a lot of times you step up to it without even realizing it. So we'll see. Maybe the Canadian can make an impact,” said Cates.
