Saskatchewan Rush announcer buys hockey team in North Macedonia

You might know Cody Janzen as the voice of the Saskatchewan Rush, but what you might not know is he has a history of hockey, too.

He’s played in minor and junior hockey and a little bit overseas; he even started up a hockey agency and ran it for about a decade.

While he passed on the agency, he wanted to continue helping people play a sport he loves.

“So kicked around a few ideas, talked to some people, was connected with the right people and decided that getting into the ownership world was kind of something that had always interested me,” said Janzen.

He took ownership of a hockey team in North Macedonia, The Skopja Herd.

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While hockey isn’t exactly on the North Macedonia radar, Janzen wants to bring the game back to a place where they haven’t even had minor hockey for years.

“They did actually have a lot of hockey history. It’s Yugoslavia was hockey was huge in the ’60s and ’70s, you know, even pre-COVID they had a really strong national team — won the development cup back in 2018. And then unfortunately hockey fell apart there,” said Janzen.

Janzen says Skopja had reached out in hopes of hockey returning, and the people in the community are excited Janzen is giving them an assist.

“It was special to see… there wasn’t a single empty seat there for either of our games on the weekend. Like that’s cool to me. People want hockey back there.”

Janzen says the team has had a good start so far and he would like to see them win a championship, but most of all, he wants to see hockey thrive in North Macedonia.

“I feel like it’s an opportunity for me to give back to the hockey world. Hockey gave so much to me, sports gave so to me,” said Janzen.

“And now I’ve got the chance to make an impact, and you know, people’s lives, it doesn’t matter where it is around the world, but it’s kids getting into hockey. Just people playing sports.”

Watch above for more on the new North Macedonia hockey team, The Skopja Herd.