Mike McKenna’s professional hockey resume speaks for itself.

But long before he was racking up wins on his way to becoming the winningest American-born goaltender in American Hockey League (AHL) history, he was introduced to the business side of professional hockey and quickly learned a great deal about the Professional Hockey Players’ Association (PHPA) – attending the yearly union meetings as a 23-year-old rookie with the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers in 2005-06

As McKenna explained it, his initial attendance at a PHPA meeting was at the request of his goaltending partner – Marc Magliarditi – a veteran netminder nearing the end of his playing career with the Wranglers and the team’s PHPA representative at the time.

Understanding his career was nearing its end, Magliarditi tasked McKenna with filling his role with the union.

“I guess for some reason, he thought that I might be good at that or enjoy that,” McKenna said with a laugh, before adding, “Turns out he was right, because I did. It just seemed like an avenue for me to do something different other than just playing the game. I showed up, and I just loved it.”

The business side of the game was something McKenna always had an interest in, but it wasn’t until the opportunity presented itself – with Magliarditi proverbially passing the torch to McKenna to take over as the team’s PHPA representative – that he really took it and ran with it.

“Honestly, if [Magliarditi] hadn’t asked me to do it, I’m really not sure if I would have, but he gave me a great avenue to do it, and then from there, it just became kind of a passion,” McKenna said. “I mean, I went every single year I possibly could, because I just.. I loved it. I thought it was so much fun to be able to represent everybody and learn about the game and take away something more than just being on the ice.”

It certainly worked out well for the PHPA.

McKenna became a member of the PHPA’s Executive Committee as his fellow hockey playing colleagues noticed and became aware of his passion for the union.

He also became an integral part of collective bargaining negotiations on behalf of the players, sitting at the negotiating table during CBA negotiations at both the ECHL and AHL levels – including one with the ECHL and two with the AHL – including in 2015 and the 2019 CBA negotiations which wrapped up after his final season of professional hockey as a player that spring.

“It was interesting to sit with people who were really successful in a lot of things, not necessarily just hockey. A lot of the owners, a lot of the general managers, have experience outside of the game. And I found that the negotiation aspect was a lot of fun,” McKenna said, explaining the back-and-forth/give-and-take that comes with any negotiation between two parties.

“But what you find,” McKenna continued, “is that people were just really honest with a lot of it. I found the one thing that really stuck with negotiations is you just need to be blunt and not beat around the bush. There’s too many words a lot of times.”

One memory in particular McKenna had of his early days as a player rep at the CBA negotiating table spoke to that blunt, not beating around the bush mentality.

“We brought up something that we were trying to get for the players that would have been really nice. And I got a post-it note slid to me from across the table from [then-AHL President/CEO,] Dave Andrews that said something to the effect of, ‘no way’,” McKenna recalled, “and it just stuck with me, because it was really blunt, and it made me laugh, really. It’s just business, you know, it’s not a personal thing. But we tried, and we knew where we stood within not even two minutes, or even two seconds.”

The negotiations themselves fascinated McKenna, and he quickly learned some of the nuances involved in negotiating a new CBA with team owners and league presidents over the years.

“You know, you float something. You get no traction. But, then you float another thing and you realize there might be something there, and sometimes it surprises you,” McKenna explained. “You have to be really nimble in how you attack negotiations, because sometimes you’ll be able to get wins in areas you don’t expect, compared to some that you thought would be easier than others.”

As a goaltender that moved from AHL to NHL and even from one organization to the next in the same season like he endured in his final pro season in 2018-19 – going from the Ottawa Senators organization to Vancouver via trade and then subsequently claimed off waivers less than 72 hours later by Philadelphia – there were certain holes in previous CBAs that McKenna experienced first-hand as a result of all the shuffling over the years.

Which is why the final CBA negotiations McKenna was directly involved in, in 2019, after retiring from pro hockey as a player was a final opportunity for McKenna to create positive change for future goaltenders and pro hockey players in the ECHL and AHL, something he still to this day is extremely proud of.

“These were things that I experienced, [and] hardships that I faced while playing that we were able to get some writing in the CBA that came directly out of my own experiences. That’s really fulfilling,” McKenna said. “And it’s not like you go around looking for a victory lap with this 10-15 years later and it goes forgotten. Deep down inside, you know yourself, hey, here is my legacy. Even if years later nobody realizes it, I’m still really proud that some of those things found their way into the CBA and that I was able to have some influence on it.”

McKenna’s Post-Hockey Career In Sports Media, Business World

Upon wrapping up his playing career, McKenna quickly turned his attention to the sports media world – writing articles for NHL.com during the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs as well as getting a call-in hit on NHL Network.

“I was writing game recaps. I was doing everything I could to try to just get my name out there. And then, you know, I got one hit on NHL network on a on a call in because there was something that I had noticed and wrote an article about,” McKenna recalled of that spring in 2019.

Then, with his hometown team St. Louis Blues in the Stanley Cup Finals that year, McKenna made his live TV debut on NHL Network in an opportunity that ‘came out of nowhere’, thanks to the NHL.com’s editorial director Shawn Roarke.

“They needed somebody on set – a goalie person to talk. And I remember I just got in my car, got my suit and went down to the rink as fast as I could,” McKenna explained of the whirlwind moment leading up to his live TV debut.

An anxious McKenna recalled doing as much of the off-air homework he could on short notice to prepare for his live TV set, but his plan was to go in and wing it – which with hindsight being 20/20 was the best course of action for him as he believes to this day it’s his best work on live television.

“It was completely off the cuff,” McKenna said of his live TV debut. “And that opened the door. I got an interview with the Vegas Golden Knights. A couple weeks later, I went out there, and I thought it’d be a great experience. Never thought I’d get a job. And next thing you know, I walked out of there thinking, man, this feels real, and I got offered the chance to go on TV with them.”

He joined the Vegas Golden Knights as a TV analyst for two seasons, offering his perspective as a former NHL goaltender on live segments before during and after games.

McKenna’s passion for media and broadcast was developed during his playing days, as he wrote articles for In Goal Magazine and made it a point to give reporters and media outlets interviewing him insightful answers and honest details about what he and his team were going through.

“I took pride in that. I tried not to give canned ham simple answers,” McKenna said of respecting the media’s job they had to do. “I tried to actually give some insight into what we were doing. And all that was with an eye towards media and broadcasting.”

After his time with Vegas came to an end, there were other NHL options for McKenna to continue in the sports broadcasting world but with his family and friends deeply rooted in the St. Louis area the decision was ultimately made to pursue a new opportunity in a different line of work.

“I had been gone for 20 winters in a row, and I just didn’t want to keep chasing the game,” McKenna explained of the ultimatum he reached after the 2020-21 season. “And so I reached that threshold where I had to decide, am I going to just keep chasing and going for TV or and moving around and getting hired and fired and or am I going to build something? Can I build a career?”

It was another chance meeting for McKenna with a local St Louis area native and former college and AHL hockey player, Tom Kaiman, that introduced him to Macadoodles.

“I guess the long story short is that I saw what I thought is a brand with a great amount of potential in a state that’s largely regional, that’s very Missouri, that’s to my core who I am,” McKenna explained of his introduction to the idea of a managing partnership with beer, wine and spirits chain.

McKenna, along with Kaiman and former Missouri University/current New York Jets quarterback Brady Cook, opened a new Macadoodles franchise store in Dardenne Prairie, Missouri on November 15, 2024.

“I didn’t look at it like it was a liquor store, and think this is great, because it wasn’t a passion play. I like food and wine and beverage, but this was a business opportunity that I felt could grow and I could build a team I could manage,” McKenna said, acknowledging he could use his economics degree from St. Lawrence University and what he had learned about business in school. “It just felt like something where it wasn’t corporate, it wasn’t stuffy. Yeah, I was going to miss hockey. I do miss hockey, but I get my fix with my kids, coaching them, watching them, and I still get to act like an idiot on social media with this thing, so it kind of all just came together.”