Red Deerians are invited to learn more about our city’s sport heritage via a new digital archives collection that launched today.
The Rene Rondeau Sports Video Collection includes 200 digitized videos containing sports coverage from CKRD/RDTV between 1987 and 2009. Rene Rondeau worked at the station from 1995 to 2004 as a reporter, host and news producer, capturing and sharing the stories when RDTV was central Alberta's only television channel. These videos, publicly accessible for the first time, allow residents and history enthusiasts to learn more about the important role sport has played in the Red Deer area, and to relive key moments such as the Red Deer Rebels winning the Memorial Cup in 2001.
“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.
“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,” said Rene Rondeau. “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.”
The videos have been added to The City’s publicly accessible online digital archives collection, which is available to view, free of charge, at https://reddeer.access.preservica.com/.
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.
For more information, please contact:
Corporate Communications
The City of Red Deer