Longtime play-by-play announcer Galen Hartviksen reached a career milestone on March 18 as the Olds Grizzlys concluded their season in playoff action against the Brooks Bandits.
This past season was his 10th calling Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) games in Olds, what he views as the best part of his job as news and sports director at 96.5 CKFM.
Hartviksen grew up in Thunder Bay, Ont., and wanted to become a broadcaster since he was nine years old. As a kid, he lived in the country and would dial into the radio looking for sportscasts. In 2003, he graduated from the broadcasting program at Calgary's Mount Royal College.
That year, he sent his resume to Melanie Hepp and her husband Brian, who were starting a radio station in Olds. Marc Chikinda, a broadcast journalism professor at Mount Royal, referred him to the opportunity.
ìOne of our other profs had a great line. He said, ëIf you can be part of a launch of a station at any point in your career, it will be something you really enjoy,' and it has been,î Hartviksen said.
Jumping from college to a full-time job was a major change in workload for him.
ìDay 1, you're Ö doing everything you were given a month to do as your major project in college, it seemed like, every day,î he said.
The first CKFM Grizzlys broadcast came in March 2004, during the playoffs against the Drumheller Dragons.
Since then, Hartviksen has watched how Olds added to the radio station's sports itinerary, with high school football, rodeos, Parkland AA baseball and ACAC competition at Olds College.
ìAs your career progresses, sometimes you have to make a jump off to get to some place to be able to do new things,î he said. ìThis has been a market where new things have just seemed to keep being added to the fact there was already the junior A hockey job here.î
Even with all the new action in town, announcing Grizzlys games is still Hartviksen's favourite part of the job.
In the AJHL, most of the players are aiming for the NCAA, not the NHL, Hartviksen said. Because he's immersed in the community, he can't help but pull for the kids, hoping that they and the team do well.
ìYou got to know a lot of the families, you got to know a lot of the alumni. Every kid that comes out to the team, you want to see them reach their potential so I always wanted to focus on the positive,î he said.
ìThe reason we're here, we're a community radio station. The reason we're broadcasting at this level is a lot different than at the NHL level. Your listeners are the parents,î he continued. ìYour listeners are the people that you run into in town.î
This past Grizzlys season coincided with the ìDrive for Five, Keep the Grizzlys Aliveî campaign where the club was trying to sell 500 season tickets to rescue itself from financial trouble.
Hartviksen doubts the team will fold, saying it's too big a part of the community and that the people involved with the team won't let it happen. However, if Olds did lose its AJHL team, he said it would leave a gaping hole at the station.
ìIt would be a big piece of the puzzle that would be missing,î he said. ìWe'd look at doing other things but it's been such a big piece each of the years we've been here that I wouldn't know what to do with myself from September until March, basically.î
Keeping the Grizzlys in town for years to come would put Hartviksen in an exclusive class of broadcasters.
There aren't many play-by-play jobs in the sports media landscape, he said. Hartviksen points to names such as Peter Maher, the radio announcer for the Calgary Flames, and Cam Moon of the Red Deer Rebels as broadcasters with longevity.
Hartviksen said it's hard to say what his future plans are. But for now, he's content to watch the journeys of the players, parents and community.
ìTo get to a point where you've had this much time with one organization, it's really hard to see anything else,î he said. ìTen years in one place is a long time but it's gone by so quickly and we've had so much fun doing it.î
