{"id":486548,"date":"2026-02-20T01:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/486548\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T01:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T01:16:14","slug":"drew-wolitarsky-signs-contract-to-retire-with-winnipeg-blue-bombers-winnipeg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/486548\/","title":{"rendered":"Drew Wolitarsky signs contract to retire with Winnipeg Blue Bombers &#8211; Winnipeg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>He may have left the <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/winnipeg-blue-bombers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Winnipeg Blue Bombers<\/a> last year, but his heart was still in Winnipeg.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Receiver Drew Wolitarsky signed a one-day contract with his former CFL club to retire as a Blue Bomber after playing 96 of his 98 career CFL games in the blue and gold.<\/p>\n<p>Wolitarsky announced his retirement at the age of only 30 after eight years in the league.<\/p>\n<p>He played seven seasons in Winnipeg after being selected in the 2017 CFL Supplemental Draft and racked up nearly 3,000 yards receiving with 18 career touchdowns. His best season was in 2023, when he made 47 catches for around 700 yards with six touchdowns.<\/p>\n<p>Wolitarsky was released by the Bombers a year ago and signed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats shortly after, but he didn\u2019t make a single catch in only two games in an injury-plagued 2025 season and was cut loose earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>When he didn\u2019t get an offer to his liking in free agency, he made the decision to call it quits after what he called the hardest year of his career.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767930311_275_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n<p>Get the day&#8217;s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI kind of made my mind up a week ago that I was probably most likely done,\u201d Wolitarsky said on a Zoom interview from Madeira, Portugal.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Sports<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHonestly, man, I just didn\u2019t feel like I had a deal on the table I was happy with. I feel like it was just at that point where it\u2019s like, you\u2019re not really feeling very wanted. And at the same time, it\u2019s like you\u2019re just kind of chasing something out of your pride rather than being real about it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really wanted to retire as a Bomber. That\u2019s just where I feel like my heart was, man. That\u2019s where I put all my heart and soul into, community-wise \u2014 had so many friends out there, the music scene. It just made sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11672603\/real-canadian-superstore-fined-product-of-canada\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CP172433358.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tReal Canadian Superstore fined for \u2018misleading\u2019 Product of Canada displays\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11674708\/canada-us-womens-hockey\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/CP175838601.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tCanada loses to U.S. in Olympics women\u2019s hockey final\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Since making the decision, Wolitarsky has been reaching out to former teammates for advice. He\u2019s still not even sure where he\u2019s going to live with his wife and two kids yet, but he\u00a0wants no part of an office job and is open to working in football.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll tell you what I won\u2019t be doing,\u201d said Wolitarsky. \u201cI will not be sitting at a desk from nine to five buddy. I cannot do that. I will not do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-video__image\" alt=\"Click to play video: 'Winnipeg Blue Bombers sign Super Bowl champion QB Bryce Perkins'\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/7e132025afe5515ac8a08586feb5b891471745bcc3fdb6d9caad5717bc3da224.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"   data-\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t0:28<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWinnipeg Blue Bombers sign Super Bowl champion QB Bryce Perkins\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size He may have left the Winnipeg Blue Bombers last year,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82,7504,2705],"class_list":["post-486548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports","tag-winnipeg-blue-bombers","tag-winnipeg-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}