As per CFL.ca
Wolitarsky signs a 1-day contract and retires as a Blue Bomber.
Thanks for your service, and best of luck in your future, Drew.
He was a good one. Best of luck in your future. Thanks for the memories.
Great guy, he and Strevey were a bromance that we were lucky to witness, Drew was a great contributor on the field, and apparently a hoot in the clubhouse.
For all those who admonish teams for just "singing cum bye yah" and not doing anything, Drew made that singing part of the winning.
Official Link (https://www.bluebombers.com/2026/02/19/drew-wolitarsky-retires-as-a-blue-bomber/)
Love it. Great teammate, great person.
All the best in your retirement, Drew!
Hey Drew! Thanks for all the great memories and we wish you all the best moving forward. Keep playing that guitar, brother!
Ya can't help but love this guy.
Drew Wolitarsky Retires as a Blue Bomber
WINNIPEG, MB., February 19, 2026 – The Winnipeg Blue Bombers today announce the signing of Drew Wolitarsky to a one-day contract so he can officially retire as a member of the football club.
Wolitarsky, 30, spent seven of his eight Canadian Football League seasons with the Blue Bombers (2017-24) and played his final game as a member of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats last year.
He was part of two Grey Cup championship teams in Winnipeg, winning in 2019 and 2021. He appeared in 96 regular season games for the team, pulling in 227 receptions for 2,954 yards and 18 touchdowns. His best season came in 2023, when he had 47 catches for 668 yards and six scores.
Born in Santa Clarita, CA, and a product of the University of Minnesota, Wolitarsky was selected by the Blue Bombers in the 2017 CFL Supplemental Draft after discovering he qualified as a national player because his mother was born in Montreal.
Popular in the locker room and in the community, he evolved into a reliable target for Blue Bombers quarterbacks Matt Nichols, Chris Streveler and Zach Collaros during his days in Winnipeg before joining Hamilton last season, suiting up for two games.
Great that he wanted to do that!
As steady as they come. Rare to have a talent like this for that long. Big part of our mini dynasty and the best guy to boot. Classy move. All the best in 2nd stage of your career.
No fluff in this interview, Woli tells it like it is.
A Bomber forever.
Great career and a name that will be engrained in my core memories of our golden era.
Thank you and all the best!
Probably my favorite "just a wide out NAT" of the last 14 years. Or, IOW, our best NAT REC not named Demski. I don't care what anyone says, Woli was a legit TD threat and had to be respected. He was often Schoen-like in his ability to be on the same page as Zach in scramble rules. Decent speed, and very good hands.
We'll never forget the heavy metal guitar strumming in the EZ @IGF!
We kind of canned all of the "heart" guys on the team in the same span of 2-3 seasons, and everything was downhill after. The cups we lost, was it because the heart/rahrah guys were gone??
Best wishes Woli. Thanks for the cups. Never forgotten.
The presser is interesting. I didn't know all that about his injury issues in HAM. Explains why he was really never on the field. Really sucks to lose your last year of football like that, and then you're too old to be given the chance to re-prove yourself.
Interestingly, Woli basically said Strev is done too, something Strev hasn't quite said himself (yet).
Quote from: Tecno on February 20, 2026, 12:16:42 AMThe presser is interesting. I didn't know all that about his injury issues in HAM. Explains why he was really never on the field. Really sucks to lose your last year of football like that, and then you're too old to be given the chance to re-prove yourself.
Interestingly, Woli basically said Strev is done too, something Strev hasn't quite said himself (yet).
Suspect Woli was Ted's pet project and Milanovich probably wasn't keen on playing him ahead of younger Natl. receivers they already had on their roster either.
Wow. Look what we lost when we lost Woli. We never got that production back. Look at all the tough crossing/short routes, and look at Woli's ability to find the soft hole in the zone, especially when Zach has a few more seconds. And all the times he'd bust one behind coverage because he's good at baitin' & waitin' and a decent route runner. And nice YAC.
No wonder we haven't done too well since he got injured & then left.
Icing on the cake: 6:15 he does a Dressler-esque diving catch that basically no NAT does for us.
It's little wonder we won so much when Woli was healthy and our REC corps was stacked. Woli was the 4th or 5th read and yet he's a fully legit threat.
Our hope now has to be Nield can get that same level of production. (And don't no one bash my Nichols after watching that reel! '18-'19 Nichols may have been better than '25 Zach...)
Good Woli highlight video. With Bailey.
I miss both those guys
Forgot how good Nichols was before he regularly got clobbered.
And prime Zach.
Yeah hoping for Nield.
In the interview Woli talks about trying to play with 3 cracked ribs in 2024, being tackled and knocked out for the remainder of the season with 6 broken ribs. Just another case of a Bomber player being allowed to play when they shouldn't when replacements were available.
Either the medical staff didn't know about about his injury or they were negligent and allowed him to play anyway, seems these stories always end the same way with the player getting injured much worse than they were originally and missing the rest of the season.
Quote from: Throw Long Bannatyne on February 22, 2026, 07:31:36 PMIn the interview Woli talks about trying to play with 3 cracked ribs in 2024, being tackled and knocked out for the remainder of the season with 6 broken ribs. Just another case of a Bomber player being allowed to play when they shouldn't when replacements were available.
Either the medical staff didn't know about about his injury or they were negligent and allowed him to play anyway, seems these stories always end the same way with the player getting injured much worse than they were originally and missing the rest of the season.
People are too quick to call out the medical staff with minimal real information. I know some of the staff personally from being in the health care field. They are well trained, have first rate reputations, and are incredibly ethical. I'm not saying mistakes can't be made, but you should have alot more first hand information before calling them negligent.
He didn't say they were negligent, he said they either didn't know about it or were negligent, I d bet anything they didn't know about it and he played hurt only to get more ribs broken. It's unfortunate but sometimes players won't come out for fear of losing their job.
Quote from: bunker on February 22, 2026, 09:34:55 PMPeople are too quick to call out the medical staff with minimal real information. I know some of the staff personally from being in the health care field. They are well trained, have first rate reputations, and are incredibly ethical. I'm not saying mistakes can't be made, but you should have alot more first hand information before calling them negligent.
Hard to say at what level these decision are made, does trainer Al Couture override the qualified medical staff? Does O'Shea override all after talking with the players? Can't say everything is humpty dory, after witnessing what Schoen and Strev. have gone through in the past. At some point the players have to be protected for their own safety. If Schoen turned around and sued for loss of income a lawyer could make a pretty good case in his favour, depending who signed what documents and waivers that allowed him to play.
Like you I'm not in the room, so its all speculation. But Schoen injured his ACL initially in June 2024, and return to training camp in May 2025, after 11 months. Standard return to play is 9-12 months, so nothing unusual there. Anywhere from 1/6 to 1/4 players with ACL injuries will have a second ACL injury within 2 years. Its an unfortunate aspect of the injury. There is some data that the knee returns slightly closer to normal (in term of testing metrics) by waiting an additional year (ie recovery of 21-24 months), at least in athletes under 25. But Schoen was 27 when he injured it, and asking him to delay his return an additional year without evidence that it actually reduces his risk of reinjury, and just based on the fact his knee would "test out" closer to normal after another 12 months, would have been a very hard sell, and outside the bounds of what is normally done. Jamal Parker and Lawson also rehabbed ACL injuries with the bombers within the past 2 years, with no reinjury so far. Its human nature to want to find someone to blame when bad things happen, but sometimes it just is what it is.
I think it's safe to say that players are given a lot of latitude to decide if they "feel" ready or not, when maybe the smarter move is to shut them down.
Shoen is pretty much done... gotta move on.