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Weston Dressler is now a member of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, but Chris Getzlaf — who announced his retirement from the CFL and the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Thursday — will always be considered a comrade.

“He’s everything that you can ask for in a teammate,” Dressler said after the Regina-born Getzlaf met the media. “He’s going to try to help everybody in the room as much as he can, because it’s going to help the team win.

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“He’s very knowledgeable about the game. I always valued his input on anything regarding the game. As a teammate, he’s one of the best you can find.”

Dressler and Getzlaf were teammates with the Roughriders from 2008 to 2015. During that time, they played in three Grey Cup games (those of 2009, 2010 and 2013) and combined for seven 1,000-yard receiving seasons.

“It’s just a lot of good years,” reflected Dressler, who has spent the past two seasons with Winnipeg. “He became a really great friend of mine — a guy who I’ll be friends with the rest of my life.

“He’s a guy who I learned a lot from as an American coming up to Canada and learning the Canadian game. Listening to the Canadian guys like Getzlaf who know a lot about it really helped me. That was one thing I took from Getz early on in my career.

“Even later on, watching him play the game and the way he ran his routes, the way he did things on the field was very unique at times but very effective. Trying to adapt some of those things was not easy to do, just because the way he does it.

“He’s a special player.”

rvanstone@postmedia.com

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