(Re-printed from thecurler.com) Sometime about 10 o’clock this morning (Tuesday, January 7, 2025), Clayton Dreger will sign off for the last time as Sports Director at Goldenwest Radio.
For exactly forty years, Clayton has been telling the local sports story for the listeners on the Goldenwest Manitoba network from his studio in the Altona radio station….and exactly 40 years, means EXACTLY 40 years. Dreger has chosen to end his broadcast career 40 years TO THE DAY from when he started his career at the same radio station.
He has stayed at Goldenwest for his entire career and became known (and respected) for putting local sports above the higher profile, professional sports. His listeners always knew they could count on him to tell the story of the local high school teams, the local community hockey-baseball-curling teams.
He might tell you what happened with the Jets or the Bombers but only if he didn’t run out of time talking about local sports.
And curling got more than its share of attention. Local bonspiel results, local super-league results, provincial championships as far afield as Thompson but always first telling the story of how the local teams were doing. Occasionally the local curlers would reach the pinnacle and he had the opportunity to lead his sportscasts with those local success stories: Altona’s Harold Sawatzky and his team making their phenomenal run to the Manitoba Men’s curling championship final before losing to Vic Peters (another popular Goldenwest market area name), Altona’s Mackenzie Zacharias skipping her team to Manitoba, Canadian and World junior titles, and just this week Morden’s Nash Sugden winning the U-18 championship.
What could be more fitting in the retirement story of a dedicated community sports broadcaster than for his last curling championship interview to be conducted in a community curling club in the heart of his broadcast territory and for his last interview with a Manitoba champion to be with a youth curler from that very same region?
Best wishes to Clayton Dreger in a well-earned retirement – and THANK YOU from the Manitoba curling community!
