Another edition of the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs is now underway, a hockey fan’s favourite time of year. Unless, of course, you’re a Maple Leaf devotee, in which case it is the most stressful.

As millions gather in arenas and around screens to watch games, debates about past playoff victories and defeats, heroes and goats, are always part of the conversation.

Nobody knows this better than Liam Maguire, who has made a career out of hockey trivia.

The Seneca graduate is the host of a new Jeopardy-style hockey trivia game show at the Rideau Carleton Casino in Ottawa.

“There’s nothing that moves the needle like hockey in Canada,” said Mr. Maguire, a frequent guest on TSN’s Off the Record and who has also appeared on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada.

In his new trivia show, Mr. Maguire, Canada’s unofficial hockey trivia king, is the host as players compete to answer questions and score points.

“It’s live and in person,” he said. “I’m thrilled to have been asked to do it.”

Mr. Maguire studied journalism at Seneca in the early 1980s. He was an active presence on campus, serving as a vice-president of the Seneca Student Federation and sports editor of the student paper. He also played intermural hockey and talked non-stop about sports at the Newnham Campus pub.

Charles (Spider) Jones, a Canadian Boxing Hall of Famer, journalist and author and Senecan of Distinction, was one of Mr. Maguire’s classmates. The two later co-hosted a show called Sports Spectrum on the Maclean-Hunter local access television station.

As a Seneca journalism student, Mr. Maguire was able to gain access to Toronto Maple Leafs practices and interview players.

“My skills at that time were just developing,” he said. “Seneca pushed me and provided opportunities to gain experience.”

In 1981, Mr. Maguire burst onto the sports trivia scene. Hoping to get noticed, he called a Toronto sports radio station that would become Sportsnet 590 The FAN. Because Mr. Maguire repeatedly answered trivia questions on the show and won all the prizes, he was banned from calling. Another station, CFRA in Ottawa, invited him on their show, paying him $75 for two hours.

“I thought I was a millionaire,” he said. “I bought five cases of beer.”

More invitations followed, and Mr. Maguire became a regular on radio and television shows in Montreal and Toronto.

“There wasn’t anybody that could take questions and answer with a 98 per cent accuracy,” he said. “I probably would have gone viral had there been social media back then.”

Liam Maguire with Wayne Gretzky, who wrote a foreword for his book Next Goal Wins. (Photo: submitted)

Mr. Maguire has also has written four books: Liam Maguire’s Hockey Trivia Book 1 (1994, foreword by Dick Irvin), What’s the Score? A One-of-a-Kind Compendium of Hockey Lore, Legend, History, Facts, Stats (2001, foreword by Bobby Orr), Next Goal Wins: The Ultimate NHL Historian’s One-of-a-Kind Collection of Hockey Trivia (2012, foreword by Wayne Gretzky) and The Real Ogie! The Life and Legend of Goldie Goldthorpe (2019, foreword by Bob Costas).

Mr. Maguire is currently working on a screenplay about Mr. Goldthorpe, who inspired the character Ogie Oglethorpe in the movie Slap Shot.

He credits Seneca for teaching him how to write just about anything.

“We learned how to write copy for radio, newscasts, documentaries, specials, books, scripts and screenplays — all that was available 40 years ago at Seneca,” Mr. Maguire said. “I realized how much I loved to write. I could really fly on that old typewriter.”

Having made a name for himself in Ottawa, where Mr. Maguire has “a bit of a notoriety,” you can find a pub named after him: Liam Maguire’s.

“They bought the rights to use my name on the restaurant,” he said. “I’ve done many gigs there — book launches and other things. I’m very proud to be affiliated with it. It’s still very humbling to look up and see my name.”