McKenzie happy with what game has given him

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This article was published 03/02/2020 (2159 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Bob McKenzie is thankful for everything the game of hockey has given to him.

The 63-year-old broadcaster, who began his career in sports journalism at an Ontario newspaper in the 1970s, speaks at the sold-out Sportsman’s Dinner on Thursday as the Brandon Wheat Kings raise funds for their scholarship program.

“Hockey has basically given me everything that I have in my life,” McKenzie said. “I don’t know that I would have done anything differently along the way. I’m really fortunate to be part of the community and it’s something that I’m always going to feel like I’m part of the community if I do take a step back. It’s been fantastic. It’s been pretty easy to get up and go to work every day going to hockey rinks and talking to hockey people.”

The game’s ultimate insider has carved out a terrific career covering the National Hockey League.

McKenzie joined the Sault Star in 1978 covering the Soo Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey League. In his first summer working there, Greyhounds star Wayne Gretzky signed with the World Hockey Association’s Edmonton Oilers.

After joining The Hockey News in 1982, he began doing TV spots during the 1986-87 season for a show the magazine had airing on TSN. By the early 1990s, McKenzie was hired as an analyst for Canadian Hockey League games, and TSN hired him full time in 2000.

Along with his work on the NHL, the Toronto product has also become an integral part of one of the biggest annual hockey events on the calendar for many Canadians: the world junior hockey championship.

He thinks two things have cemented the reputation of the world juniors.

“Number one is the time of the year,” McKenzie said. “We love our hockey and people are at home on the holidays at Christmas and New Year’s and a lot of times the games are in Europe and when they are, they’re on during the day. Nothing beats waking up the day after Christmas at 10 o’clock or 12 noon and sitting down with your family and friends and watching really high level hockey.

“The second part of it is that it really is fantastic hockey. I’ve always said — it was true back then and it’s true now — it’s the single best annual best-on-best tournament you can find in hockey. There are the senior world championships every spring but not all the best players are there because a lot of them are in the NHL playoffs. We only get Olympics every four years and that may or may not include NHL players.”

Mckenzie remembers first seeing the tournament in 1978 when Gretzky was part of the team and watching its evolution as it came to TSN in 1991.

“Every year you think ‘How can the hockey get any better?’ but somehow it does,” he said. “When you see not just the future stars of the National Hockey League but a whole bunch of guys who this is going to be the pinnacle of their career, you see them out there being really passionate for hockey and representing their country, not just Canada, it’s pretty exciting. It’s awfully good hockey.”

McKenzie announced last month on Twitter that he’ll be stepping back from covering the NHL full-time after this season with the expiry of his current 10-year contract. He recently inked a new five-year contract with TSN that will allow him to continue to do his draft rankings, the world juniors, trade deadline day, free agent frenzy day and a handful of Toronto Maple Leaf regional games.

“I knew that I didn’t want to shut it down completely but I also knew that I’m 63, I’ll be 64 this summer,” said McKenzie, who has 1.6 million followers on Twitter. “I love the job but there are a lot of sacrifices. If you’re going to do my job as a so-called hockey insider really well, you have to sacrifice a lot. It’s a 24-7 job during the season and that means that you screw up a lot of family functions and spend a lot of time away from your wife and kids and now grandkids that I’ve got. For me, I’ve had a good run.

“I’ve had over 40 years in the business and I just felt like you know what, this is as good a time as any to take some time and spend more time with my family and do things that I haven’t had time to do over the course of my career.”

McKenzie has always had a soft spot for junior hockey and the work it does in developing players for the NHL. In fact, that’s become another key part of his career.

The analyst released the January edition of his NHL draft rankings last week, and a pair of Wheat Kings are in the top 31. Defenceman Braden Schneider is 14th, while forward Ridly Greig sits 31st, suggesting both could be first-round picks in Montreal in June.

McKenzie is quick to say that he is not a scout, but instead compiles rankings provided to him by scouts.

He called Schneider a physical defenceman who has a lot of other elements to his game.

“He’s done a really good job of continuing to evolve,” McKenzie said. “Even though he’s not the fastest skater in the world, he’s still on most lists you look at as a top 15 guy in the NHL draft. That’s because he’s not one dimensional, he’s not just a guy who likes to hit and agitate, he’s a guy who can kill plays in his own end and skates well enough and passes the puck well enough to get the game into transition. He’s got a real bright future.”

Greig has proven to have a physical side to his game as well, with a high hockey IQ and elite skating ability. McKenzie said it doesn’t hurt that his father Mark played 125 NHL games between 1990 and 2003.

“He’s a borderline first-round pick,” McKenzie said. “Some scouts I’ve talked to suggest that he can creep into the first, others think he’s a second but he plays the game hard and is an agitator. He has the skating ability of his dad, and the experience of his dad to draw on.”

McKenzie said his impressions of the Wheat Kings involve different things. That includes some ribbing by one of his TSN co-hosts, who had the most explosive goal-scoring season in Western Hockey League history in 1983-84.

“Outside of Ray Ferraro’s 108 goals — he seems to remind us about that all the time — I think my first memories of the Wheat Kings were probably (Ray) Boschman, (Brian) Propp and (Ray) Allison,” McKenzie said with a chuckle. “They had these great dominant lines in junior hockey so I think that was first and foremost what I remembered.

“But then I started doing junior hockey broadcasts for TSN in the early ’90s and I was able to go with Gord Miller and Paul Romanuk and be in Brandon for a game at the Keystone Centre. They had so many good players back then. It’s a class organization. There’s a real air of stability, obviously having ownership and when he was there as general manager and head coach, having Kelly McCrimmon associated with it. It also raises the profile of it with the fact that’s gone on to have success in the NHL.”

WEEKLY WINNERS — Brandonite Max Paddock of the Prince Albert Raiders was named top goalie after stopping 35 of 36 shots he faced in a pair of wins. He also earned the honour in December while he was still a member of the Regina Pats. Meanwhile, Spokane Chiefs forward Adam Beckman of Saskatoon was named top player after recording two goals and five assists in three games last week.

MONTHLY WINNERS — Portland Winterhawks forward Seth Jarvis of Winnipeg scored 11 goals and added 18 assists in 10 games in January to be honoured as top player, while Shane Farkas of the Victoria Royals was top goalie after posting a 5-0-0-0 record, 1.12 goals-against average, a .964 save percentage, and two shutouts in six appearances in January.

TOP NEWCOMER — Winnipeg Ice forward Michal Teply, a product of Havlickuv Brod, Czech Republic, was named the league’s top rookie for January after scoring seven goals and adding seven assists in nine games.