For the first time in 35 years, Bob McKenzie isn't at the world juniors — here's what he's doing

The world junior hockey championship is unfolding without Bob McKenzie on the scene for the first time in more than three decades

No arena walk-throughs. No early morning preview shows. No Christmas Day flights to wherever the tournament happens to land that year. Just the games on television — and a very different holiday rhythm for the man who became as synonymous with the event as the tournament’s red-and-white jerseys.

McKenzie, now retired from TSN, isn’t exactly sure when the streak began. He thinks it was 1991, when he was still working as a rinkside reporter. But from that point on, the world juniors were a constant — an annual anchor point in both his professional life and the Canadian sports calendar.

This year is different. Intentionally so.

Instead of gearing up for another December camp or pre-tournament exhibition, McKenzie has been doing something unfamiliar: staying home. Spending time with family. Watching his grandchildren grow. Letting the holidays unfold without the tournament dictating where he needs to be and when.

“Mostly just enjoying the holidays and getting to spend time with my family, especially my grandkids,” McKenzie said. “I can’t begin to tell you how much it meant to me to get those days back.”

For decades, the world juniors lived in the middle of the most personal stretch of the calendar — Boxing Day through the days after New Year’s — a time most Canadians instinctively associate with family gatherings, downtime, and tradition. McKenzie helped turn the tournament into one of those traditions, guiding viewers through rosters, storylines, and late-night overtime games until his voice and face became inseparable from the holiday routine.

And yet, even now, old habits linger.

Happy not to be on the road

“I was acutely aware of when the mid-December camp was, when the pre-tournament games were scheduled,” he said. “I mused to myself, ‘I don’t have to go to those this year.’”

The most noticeable change came in two moments that had once felt unavoidable.

“One, it felt great to not have to go to TSN early on Christmas Eve morning to tape the preview show,” McKenzie said. “Two, it felt even better to not have to go to the airport on Christmas Day to fly to the Twin Cities.”

For someone whose career was built on being everywhere, knowing everything, and sharing it all in real time, stepping away has been both intentional and incomplete. McKenzie no longer follows the NHL grind with the same intensity, but hockey itself never truly leaves.

He can still be found at his six-year-old grandson’s Timbits practices. He watches plenty of OHL games and never misses a Kitchener Rangers matchup — his son Mike is the team’s general manager. And when his son Shawn is calling NHL games on Sportsnet or Hockey Night in Canada, the television is on.

“I’ve fully stepped away from work,” McKenzie said. “But I definitely haven’t stepped away from hockey.”

His distance from the world juniors hasn’t dulled his understanding of why the tournament still resonates — or why it resonated even when he first began covering it in the 1980s.

McKenzie believes the appeal has been remarkably consistent: Elite young players, high-stakes games, and timing that places the tournament at the center of family living rooms across the country.

“It’s the time of year when families are together and able to watch it,” he said. “And the hockey is so good, so entertaining. That’s true now and it was true then.”

More family time

The tournament’s rise into a national obsession happened alongside McKenzie’s own ascent as hockey’s preeminent insider. His calm authority, encyclopedic knowledge, and credibility helped shape how Canadians consumed the world juniors — not just as a competition, but as a shared experience.

Ask him about moments that still linger, and he doesn’t reach for a single game or goal. What stands out is the chaos and unpredictability that define junior hockey itself — the very reason the tournament remains appointment viewing year after year.

Now, retirement has opened space that never existed before.

“Absolutely,” McKenzie said. “More family time, more golf, more of everything that isn’t work.”

The world juniors will carry on without him in the building this year, just as they eventually had to. But for generations of Canadian fans, the absence still feels strange — like hearing a familiar song without the chorus.

For the first time in a very long while, Bob McKenzie is simply watching along with everyone else.