SportsHockeySports media

Bob McKenzie shares heartfelt goodbye as he leaves TSN

Preston Hodgkinson
Preston Hodgkinson
|
Jul 1 2025, 9:19 pm
Bob McKenzie shares heartfelt goodbye as he leaves TSN
TSN

The NHL media landscape will never look the same, as the legendary Bob McKenzie has called it a career.

After semi-retiring back in 2020, the 68-year-old NHL insider shared a heartfelt note on social media on Tuesday afternoon announcing that he is moving into full retirement effective immediately.

This ends a storied 48-year career in sports media.

“Today’s Free Agent Frenzy is the last working day in a 48-year professional career,” McKenzie wrote. “I decided a few months ago it’s as nice a time as any to call it a career with the expiry of my current contract. ”

McKenzie had a variety of stops throughout his long career, starting with The Sault Star newspaper in 1981 and having various other jobs at written publications such as The Hockey News, Globe and Mail, and Toronto Star.

It was his work in broadcasting, however, that helped him become a household name. He had been working at TSN since 2000, giving him an illustrious 25 years being one of the sports’ most recognizable insiders on TVs across Canada.

In his note, McKenzie revealed that he never intended to work in TV, or to even become hockey’s most trusted insider.

“I certainly never set out to be the TSN Hockey Insider. It never occurred to me that I would work in television,” McKenzie wrote. “All I wanted to be when I grew up was a hockey writer, to have a ‘job’ to watch, write and talk about the game.

“Mission accomplished, I guess.”

While he stepped back from his role in 2020, McKenzie still worked part-time with TSN, covering the World Juniors, NHL trade deadline, draft, and free agency every season. His colleague John Lue also announced his retirement on Tuesday.

The announcement has prompted an outpouring of support from other members of the hockey media. As popular as McKenzie was with hockey fans, his reverence is even higher among his colleagues.

Like everything, the hockey world will continue to roll on without interruption, but things will not feel quite the same with McKenzie breaking the news. Insiders will come and go, but there will never be another one quite like Bob McKenzie.

 

 

 

 

 

ADVERTISEMENT