From The Point: CHL President Dan MacKenzie
Canadian Hockey League President Dan MacKenzie joined Junior Hockey Magazine to discuss the CHL’s return to play, the excitement around the league’s new television rights agreement, and why Saint John was awarded the hosting rights of the 2022 Memorial Cup presented by Kia:
Junior Hockey Magazine: How excited are you to be back playing games in front of fans?
Dan MacKenzie: We are so excited. We could not be happier to be back on the ice and to be talking hockey again. We are happy for the players and their families who had to endure such a tough year last year, but we are through it and we are back playing again. With the OHL getting back up and running this past weekend, all three leagues are now playing. We are really looking forward to the season. When I look back on last year, getting back safely was always the key. With the vaccine rollouts, how they have gone, and the policies we have put in place across all three leagues, we feel pretty comfortable that, in conjunction with public health where we play, we have a safe environment for players and fans, and we cannot wait to get back at it.
JHM: How are your teams doing financially?
DM: They weathered the storm. We did not lose any clubs, which was great. In some jurisdictions, we were very fortunate to be the recipients of some support from the government. The vast majority of our teams took advantage of some of the federal government programs, which helped. All of our clubs maintained their scholarship commitments through the pandemic. That is a huge part of the package that we offer players. Thankfully, that all remained in place. We are excited to get back to a scenario where we have fans in the stands. We are bringing in our sponsorship business. They stuck with us and they are now coming back. Between sponsorship, television, and ticketing, all three of those areas are now beginning to ramp up. We are really looking forward to the future here.
JHM: What has your messaging been to the players?
DM: A lot of that work was done at the team level through discussions with team personnel, general managers, coaches, etc. There was regular communication and meetings around getting through last year and what the latest was. It is nice now to be back in a world where our clubs are able to deal with players face-to-face, players are in camp, and they are back at school, whether that be in high school or university. The feeling this year is just so different because of the fact that we are live and nothing beats that. Last year was quite the year and hopefully it is something we will never have to deal with again. We are just really excited to be back.
JHM: Tell our audience about what the CHL’s new TV rights agreement will involve.
DM: The pandemic gave us an opportunity to relook at our broadcast situation. We made the decision to move to TSN and RDS and also CBC. We started the season on CBC. We just had our second game last weekend. That is going to run until mid-November. We are also putting the finishing touches on our schedule with TSN and RDS. We think that the combination of the CHL with TSN and RDS is going to be a really great partnership that is going to help us grow our audience. There is obviously a natural connection given TSN and RDS’ commitment to the World Juniors, with Team Canada where a large majority of the players are from the CHL. We think it is a really great fit and, given TSN and RDS’ proven history of building Canadian-based sports properties, whether you are talking about the World Juniors, curling, the CFL, etc., we feel very comfortable that we are with the right partners that are going to help us grow our audience, grow our fan base, and shine the right kind of spotlight on junior hockey.
JHM: Walk us through how you announced Saint John as host of the 2022 Memorial Cup presented by Kia.
DM: First of all, this was my first time through the process with the site selection committee. We had two really strong bids in Saint John and Quebec City. We knew that we could not go wrong with either one. They were both really, really well done, but ultimately we made the decision to go to Saint John. We liked the vision that Saint John brought forward in terms of how they are going to engage the entire community. Given the fact that they have never hosted before, through their bid you could tell their passion and their desire to host this event. Prior to deciding how we were going to announce it, we brainstormed with our internal team and made the decision that me and a couple of folks would head out and surprise both the team and the executives who were involved in the bid process and we captured it all on video. It ended up being pretty successful. It was a lot of fun.