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(Screenshots from Red Deer Archives; main picture: 2021-045)
ckrd/rdtv

Former local TV host comprises digital sports collection for Red Deer archives

Jan 10, 2023 | 2:13 PM

A new digital archives collection at The City of Red Deer showcases the city’s sports heritage.

Known as the Rene Rondeau Sports Video Collection, the 200 digitized videos are now part of The City’s overall archive collection, publicly accessible at reddeer.access.preservica.com.

The collection’s material includes sports coverage from CKRD/RDTV between 1987 and 2009, and was comprised by Rene Rondeau, who worked there from 1995 to 2004. Rondeau also worked with rdnewsNOW in recent years and is now executive director at Tourism Red Deer.

“Sport has played an important role in Red Deer’s history for many years, from local clubs organizing practices to hosting high profile events like the Canada Winter Games. It is very exciting to have a piece of this history that can be preserved and shared with the community,” said Jillian Staniec, Archives Coordinator.

Rondeau explains a lot of work went into this endeavour.

“The team at RDTV captured countless historical moments from our region, including stories of local Olympians, national sporting events, and history of the Red Deer Rebels spanning from their first game to their Memorial Cup win,” he says.

“I was able to preserve the content when the station closed and, over time, transfer it to a format to allow others to view it. It’s my pleasure to share the collection with The City so the public can access it any time they wish to revisit the past and reminisce over our community’s sport history.”

Red Deer Archives encourages anyone who has organizational records, photos or videos related to local sport organization or athlete history to consider donating these items so they may be added to the collection. For more information, visit www.reddeer.ca/archives.