MONTREAL — After a media career spanning 50 years — 30 of which have been with Bell Media’s RDS — veteran sports broadcaster Claude Mailhot (above) is retiring from the network, Bell Media announced today.
To mark the occasion, Mailhot is being invited to participate today for the last time in the RDS programs Le 5 à 7, Hockey 360, Le Hockey des Canadiens and L’Antichambre, Bell Media’s press release says.
“On behalf of all the members of the large Réseau des sports (RDS) family, I would like to warmly thank Claude for his significant contribution to the success of RDS over the past 30 years,” RDS general manager Charles Perreault said in an English translation of the release.
“The passion for sport and communications that has driven him for the past fifty years remains strong and we wish him all the success as a page in the history of RDS turns and Claude begins a new chapter.”
Mailhot’s career began in 1972 as the host and creator of the first open-line radio program, CKAC’s Les amateurs de sports. Over the course of his 50-year career, Mailhot has held various roles as sports director and host at several radio stations and television networks and has served in the presentation of 21 Olympic Games.
“In 1991, Claude joined RDS as a host and covered games of the NHL, NFL, CFL and amateur sports. A lawyer by training, he was appointed assistant deputy minister at the Ministry of Education, Leisure and Sport in 2005, a position he held until he returned to his former love in 2009, at the helm of Vers Vancouver 2010 (Towards Vancouver 2010), on RDS,” the translated release says.
“An anchor for the Olympic Games since those presented in Vancouver in 2010, Claude has also been a host of NHL Hockey, in addition to participating in the coverage of the CFL, the NFL and the MLB on RDS.”
A three-minute video providing a retrospective look at Mailhot’s career at RDS can be viewed here.
For Bell Media’s French press release, which includes congratulatory messages from notable Quebec sports figures and journalists including Senator Larry Smith (Montreal Alouettes), Réjean Houle (Montreal Canadiens), Ron Fournier, Chantal Machabée and Michel Lacroix, please click here.
Image provided by Bell Media.
