PONTURO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-04-11 published
Hockey News co-founder had winning formula
By James CHRISTIE
Friday,
April 11, 2003 - Page S10
Toronto -- No one was going to get rich from The Hockey News,
Ken McKENZIE freely admitted. The wealth he shared was in the
information it contained for fans and those in the hockey industry.
McKENZIE who died Wednesday at Trillium Hospital in Mississauga,
was co-founder 1947 -- along with Will
CÔTÉ -- of the publication
that came to be known as hockey's Bible. He was 79.
His son, John
McKENZIE, said Ken died suddenly when he went into
septic shock following surgery for colon cancer.
Ken McKENZIE and
CÔTÉ birthed a magazine that was a landmark
in the Canadian periodicals industry -- a sport publication that
survived when so many failed and folded. It evolved from a house
organ for the National Hockey League --
McKENZIE was originally
an National Hockey League publicist -- into an encyclopedic,
authoritative publication. The content matured from reprints
of stories by hockey beat writers in six National Hockey League
towns to exclusive columns by The Hockey News's own editors and
writers such as Steve
DRYDEN and Bob
McKENZIE (no relation,)
who could challenge the National Hockey League and international
hockey establishment. Ken
McKENZIE was presented with the Elmer
Ferguson Award for his pioneering role on the magazine's 50th
anniversary in 1997 and inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
"He loved hockey and sports of all kinds," said John
McKENZIE,
a correspondent with American Broadcasting Company News in New
York. "He had this idea when he was in the Royal Canadian Air
Force. He got up on a table in the mess hall and called his buddies
around and said 'If I started a hockey paper, would you guys
buy it?'
"They all cheered. He started with only $383 and The Hockey News
was born."
Ken McKENZIE cited the figure as precisely $383.81 in a 50th
anniversary story in The Globe and Mail. He was famed for keeping
a close eye on finances down to the penny.
Along with editing associate Charlie
HALPIN,
McKENZIE operated
the paper on a shoestring with a handful of employees. Newspaper
beat writers in each team's city were paid only a few dollars.
"When I paid those guys, it was 10 bucks, later on 50 bucks,
whatever, it was the going rate,"
McKENZIE said. "It was always
cheap. You weren't going to get rich in this business.... I'd
say to a guy, 'You may be big in Calgary or Edmonton or Vancouver,
but if you write for this paper, they'll know you all across
Canada.' A lot of guys liked that."
As the National Hockey League's publicity director from the 1940s
into the late 1960s,
McKENZIE developed press and radio guides
and had access to teams' statistics and mailing lists. He and
CÔTÉ used those to convince almost 4,000 fans to send in $2 each
($3 in the United States) as advance subscription payments to
finance the first issue. The circulation was 20,000 by the end
of its first year.
The
Hockey
News under
McKENZIE maintained its comfortable relationship
with the National Hockey League.
McKENZIE bought out
COTE's interest
in the mid-1960s, then eventually sold 80 per cent of the magazine
to New York's
WCC
Publishing in 1973 for a reported $4-million
and the balance in the 1980s. The headquarters moved from Montreal
to Toronto and
McKENZIE stayed as publisher intil 1981.
He wanted to continue writing and working, rather than retire,
and after leaving the hockey paper, he and
HALPIN bought into
Ontario
Golf
News.
McKENZIE was still associated with the golf
paper at his death, said Ontario Golf advertising executive Ted
VANCE.
"I know it was first viewed as a house organ, but go through
his stuff in the early years and it wasn't strictly milquetoast,
said DRYDEN,
The
Hockey
News editor from 1991 to 2002. "He
may have had favourites and protected some people. As National
Hockey League publicist, he could not be a vociferous critic.
But long before the sale of The Hockey News, it was getting an
edge to it. In the end, it was a helluva idea."
Added Bob McKENZIE: "
Whatever anyone says, it's a good legacy
to have started The Hockey News and to see where it's at today."
Parent corporation Tanscontinental Publishing said The Hockey
News has a paid circulation of more than 100,000.
Ken McKENZIE is survived by his wife
Lorraine of Mississauga,
four children -- John
McKENZIE and Jane Mckenzie
KOPEC of New
York, Kim McKENZIE in Oakville, Ontario, and Nancy Mckenzie
PONTURO
in Redding, Connecticut., -- and five grandchildren. His funeral
will be 11 a.m., Monday April 14, at St. Luke's Anglican Church
on Dixie Road, Mississauga.
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