Bob McKenzie was breaking NHL news to the 11th hour of his broadcasting career, a consummate professional.
Indeed, at 4:10 p.m. ET on July 1, he was posting on X (formerly known as Twitter) about Justin Danfourth being signed by the Buffalo Sabres. At 4:38 p.m. ET, he was posting about his total retirement from sports broadcasting and TSN, a stark contrast to his bio on X as ‘Washed up Hockey Insider.’
McKenzie, who will turn 69 in August, has been one of hockey’s eminent voices since he began appearing on TSN in the mid-1980s. He wrote that while he has been semi-retired for the past five years, it’s time to officially call it quits from the broadcasting game.
TSN, for those unfamiliar, refers to ‘The Sports Network,’ one of Canada’s leading distributors of sports alongside Sportsnet. McKenzie worked for TSN full-time from 2000, but he was appearing on the network since, as he writes, 1986-87.
Reactions to Bob McKenzie retirement
While McKenzie is ubiquitous with hockey, Canadian sports fans as a whole would recognize his voice, if not his face. As such, plenty of fans had reactions to losing one of the great voices of the sport.