Cody Janzen isn't exactly doing what you’d expect a professional sports announcer to do with his spare time. Usually, when you’re the voice of a major franchise like the Saskatchewan Rush, you spend your off-season golfing or prep-reading stats for the next season. Instead, Janzen just bought a hockey team in a country where most people couldn't find the rink on a map.
The team is the Skopja Herd, based in North Macedonia. It’s a move that sounds like a plot from a niche sports movie, but for Janzen, it’s a calculated play to revive a sport that basically flatlined in the Balkans. He’s not just a guy in a broadcast booth; he’s a former player and agent who clearly missed the dirt-under-the-fingernails side of the game.
The gamble on the Skopja Herd
Buying a team in North Macedonia isn't like buying a minor league franchise in North America. You aren't walking into a pre-packaged revenue stream with a season ticket base and a plush VIP lounge. You're walking into a rebuilding project for an entire nation’s hockey culture.
The Herd represents a fresh start. Janzen’s background is steeped in the game—minor hockey, junior leagues, and even a decade-long stint running a hockey agency. He’s seen how the business works from the inside out. When he sold his agency, he didn't want to just sit on the sidelines. He wanted a project that actually meant something.
- The Motivation: Janzen talks about "giving back," which sounds like a cliché until you look at the state of Macedonian hockey.
- The Connection: He didn't just pick a name out of a hat. He worked his network, found the right people in Skopje, and realized there was an appetite for the sport that local infrastructure just wasn't meeting.
- The Venue: Games are played at the Boris Trajkovski Sports Center, and surprisingly, the seats aren't empty.
Why North Macedonia matters for hockey
If you look at the history, hockey wasn't always a ghost in this region. Back in the days of Yugoslavia, the sport had real traction. North Macedonia even had a brief flash of brilliance more recently, winning the IIHF Development Cup in 2018. But then things fell apart. COVID-19 killed the momentum, and the domestic scene basically evaporated.
Janzen isn't coming in as a savior with a white horse, but he is bringing North American operational standards to a place that desperately needs them. The fact that he saw "not a single empty seat" during recent games suggests the fan interest never actually died—it just didn't have anything to watch.
The goal for the Skopja Herd isn't just to win a regional championship, though that’s on the list. The real win is establishing a pipeline. If Janzen can get kids back on the ice in Skopje, he’s creating a sustainable ecosystem. He knows that without a youth movement, a pro team is just a temporary hobby.
Bridging the gap from Saskatoon to Skopje
There’s a weirdly beautiful symmetry here. Saskatoon is a hockey hotbed where the sport is the local religion. Skopje is a place where hockey is a cult classic—loved by a dedicated few but forgotten by the masses. Janzen is essentially exporting that Saskatchewan "hockey is life" energy to the Balkans.
He’s still the voice of the Rush, but his dual life as an owner in Europe adds a layer of credibility to his broadcast. He knows the stress of a payroll. He knows the headache of logistics in a country where the rinks might not always be perfect.
Honestly, the biggest challenge isn't the talent on the ice; it's the structure off it. Janzen’s experience as an agent gives him an edge here. He understands player development and how to market an underdog. He’s betting that the passion he saw in the stands can be turned into a professionalized league.
What this means for the future of the game
This move by Janzen might be the blueprint for how "non-traditional" hockey markets survive. We’ve seen NHL stars buy into teams in their home countries, but a Canadian announcer buying a team in North Macedonia is a different kind of commitment. It’s about the love of the game in its purest, most chaotic form.
If you’re a hockey fan, you should be watching this. It’s easy to follow the NHL trade deadline or the Rush’s playoff push. It’s much more interesting to see if a guy from Saskatchewan can actually make hockey stick in a place where the rinks were recently abandoned.
Keep an eye on the Skopja Herd. They’ve had a strong start to the season, and if the local excitement holds, Janzen might have just pulled off the most interesting underdog story in sports this year. If you want to support what he's doing, the best thing you can do is follow the team's progress or even look into how the IIHF Development Cup helps these smaller nations stay on the ice.
