Brayden Pachal isn't the only southeast connection to the Vegas Golden Knights' 2023 Stanley Cup championship.

Jim McKenzie works as a pro scout for the team. He spent part of his childhood in Carlyle, and his parents now live in Estevan. 

"As my dad says, I still don't have a real job," McKenzie said. "I just watch hockey, which is true. I get to watch hockey and write reports. Pretty cool."

McKenzie reflected on what it means to win the Stanley Cup alongside his colleagues who assembled the team.

"That's probably what it means the most...is when you sit there and you look at how you tried to do it, the reasoning or methodology behind it," McKenzie said. "And when the coaches are as good as they are and the players play as hard and it comes out the other side...that's pretty cool that it worked."

"It's been a crazy couple days," McKenzie continued. "We just sit around laughing about it. It worked. Pretty excited for the city and then the fans and certainly the players that put in all the work."

McKenzie won the Stanley Cup as a player with the New Jersey Devils back in 2003. He described how different it is to win as a hockey staff member for the first time.

"I was fortunate enough 20 years ago to win as player, and it's just so much different. The farther away you get from the ice, the less control you have," he said. "As scouts we go out and make trades, we sign free agents, we do that kind of thing to try to create the team. But you're never in the room, you're not on the bench, you're not at practice the days in between."

"You have no control over the game at all, you just kind of watch helplessly from a distance and hope you made the right decisions on which guys you acquired and brought in to add to the team. Obviously very elated and very excited to win, but also there's that relief at the end that you finally got through it."

McKenzie said he'll be spending a few days in Vegas before taking off to Nashville for the NHL draft at the end of the month.

He added that he could make it back to southeast Saskatchewan when Pachal brings the cup back to Estevan.