Kenzie Lalonde has a treasure trove of memories that stay with her from her days as an Ottawa Senators fan.
She remembers seeing Ray Emery zip around the city in his orange Lamborghini. Lalonde would ride her bike around her neighborhood, trying to get drivers to honk their horns during games whenever the Senators would score. Lalonde repped the Ottawa Lady Senators in her youth hockey days and wore No. 16 for her favorite player, the bruising Brian McGrattan. Not only did she play games at the Bell Sensplex in Stittsville — where the Senators practice — it was also the site of Lalonde’s high school graduation.
Lalonde even attended Chris Neil’s jersey retirement ceremony in Feb. 2023, a night on which he celebrated part of the festivities from the Canadian Tire Centre penalty box.
“I was in the stands with my mom and dad,” Lalonde said. “And I cried just because he was a player that I enjoyed watching growing up.”
Now, the TSN broadcaster will call games for her hometown team and make history.
Lalonde will broadcast select Senators games this season, making her the first female NHL play-by-play voice assigned to calling games for a team on television in Canada. The Ottawa native will continue her duties as TSN’s Montreal bureau chief, which includes hosting Montreal Canadiens games broadcasts. Lalonde will fill in for games not broadcasted by play-by-play men Gord Miller or Matt Cullen this coming season.
“It’s exciting,” Lalonde said. “When there’s opportunities and an opportunity (that’s) with the organization that formed your foundational understanding of the game. It’s a dream come true and it’s an incredible responsibility. Ottawa is a crazy hockey market and it’s a smart fan base. It’s a passionate fan base, and it’s a well-developed hockey town.
“It’s a passionate fan base. I’m excited to be attached to that fan base now, and I’m excited for the fans to get to know me.”
Lalonde was the team captain of the women’s hockey team at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Commerce. When she wasn’t playing or studying, she interviewed fellow athletes through the school’s athletics department. After moving back to Ottawa to work with U Sports in a social media role, she moved back to the Maritimes to work for Eastlink TV in Halifax. In 2021, she called a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League game between the Halifax Mooseheads and the Charlottetown Islanders, becoming the first woman to call a QMJHL game.
Before the game, Lalonde leaned on guidance from Leah Hextall. Hextall is the first woman to call an NHL game, doing so as part of the NHL’s first all-female broadcast in celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8, 2020. Cassie Campbell-Pascall and Christine Simpson also worked on the broadcast. Hextall is one of Lalonde’s many broadcasting influences, alongside Miller and Bryan Mudryk. Hextall continues to work as a play-by-play voice and reporter for ESPN’s NHL broadcasts.
“I just told her you need to trust yourself,” Hextall said. “Because you’ve earned this. And make sure you’re present in the moment and have a chance to enjoy it because you’ve worked for it. And since that time, we’ve gone back and forth a little bit with notes. She’s had a couple of career decisions where I’ve been very flattered that she’s called me for advice.”
“She was the first person that I could talk with about having a foundational understanding of what it’s like to feel you have the weight of your gender on your shoulders going into opportunities like this,” Lalonde said. “She really was such a good influence on me early on to not normalize that feeling but digest it and know you’re not alone.
“I’ve always leaned on her as an influence in the space of play-by-play that is a male-dominated environment.”
Since joining TSN in 2021, Lalonde has been the play-by-play voice for the IIHF Women’s World Championship and was a reporter covering women’s hockey at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing. Lalonde has also called Canadiens’ games and Olympic soccer matches on the radio for TSN 690 in Montreal.
“She deserves it,” Hextall said. “Kenzie has done it the right way. She has taken her time and she has put in the repetition, she has put in the work, and she has earned this opportunity to call in Ottawa. And what a beautiful experience for her to have, especially as a native of Ottawa. But really, the only thing that needs to be said about this is that it’s a deserved opportunity, whether she was male or female.”
(Top photo courtesy of Kenzie Lalonde)
