The Original ‘Hockey Night In Canada’ Takes Its Dying Breath

For nearly as long as Canadian homes have had televisions, hockey fans have been able to spend their Saturday nights watching the country's teams on the public broadcast channel CBC. Initially a branding for CBC's radio coverage of the NHL, Hockey Night In Canada debuted on TV in 1952, and since then it's become a national institution—think Monday Night Football crossed with Jeopardy! , times two. But starting next season, the Saturday night hockey tradition will be a shell of its old self, because the games will be entirely behind a paywall. No more CBC broadcasts that you can pick up with just an antenna, or free over the internet within the country's borders. It'll be just cable and streaming games exclusively on the Rogers Media–owned Sportsnet.

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This disappointing news is a long time in the making. While CBC has carried these games for generations, they've been doing so for over a decade as a kind of hanger-on while live sports rights fees zoom past the territory of the embattled budgets of public broadcasters. In 2014, Sportsnet began its multi-billion dollar contract to broadcast the NHL nationally in Canada, and in doing so they worked out a simulcast agreement with CBC for Hockey Night and their NHL playoff coverage to quiet any outcry about taking away such a beloved program. With an even more lucrative deal about to begin next season, however, there is no such reverence for the old way of watching. On Saturday nights, or during the postseason, it's now Sportsnet or bust. And while CBC is trying to positively spin the change as an opportunity for them to broadcast other sports, potentially making ad money that doesn't go straight to Rogers, I'm more than a little dubious at any implication that they're happy about their last ties to their most iconic program being severed. It feels like justifying getting dumped by saying "Well, now I can focus more on my painting."