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Alain Crête: “semi-retirement” until retirement in 2026

For the past few days, Paul Arcand’s retirement has been the hot topic in the Quebec media world. The “king of the airwaves” has hung up his microphone, as he delivered his last show yesterday.

And the tributes have been pouring in ever since, of course.

However, behind the scenes, Alain Crête (who worked alongside Arcand for many years) has also left radio. The morning “sports guy” also bowed out of radio yesterday.

And this morning, on FM93, the man we know best as the studio host for Habs games chatted a bit about his future, and confirmed that he’ll be retiring from television in 2026.

Until then, he’ll be in “semi-retirement”, meaning he’ll continue to host hockey games, but won’t do anything else. His other appearances will be cut, basically.

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The host, who wants to make a transition to retirement rather than a “drastic cut”, explains that his current contract requires him to make other appearances beyond hockey games. From now on, he will only be seen on game days (but not on Saturdays, of course).

This will be the case until 2026, when he retires (and the current RDS broadcasting contract comes to an end).

What we have to understand, then, is that we’ll no longer see him, for example, on the 5 to 7 on days when the Habs aren’t in action. One wonders if he’ll make the occasional appearance on game days, but that will no longer be one of his obligations, as we understand it.

The man who will be 66 at the start of next season will therefore be hosting for two more years before making way for others.

And with RDS looking likely to retain the rights to broadcast CH games beyond 2026, one wonders who will take his place if the network has to replace him as of the 2026-27 season…

Overtime

– The last time the Oilers lost three games in a row, they won 16 in a row afterwards.

– Not an ugly comparison.

– Interesting stuff.

– To be continued.

– Speaking of media personalities and retirements.