The Decibel - Hockey Night in Canada without the NHL

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

Hockey Night in Canada is considered a Canadian cultural institution. For almost 75 years, it was broadcast on the CBC, accessible to any Canadian who wanted to tune in. But earlier this year, CBC and Sportsnet, which owns the rights to air NHL games in Canada, ended their partnership.Now, the CBC is trying to rebuild a new version of the show without the NHL, and people are left wondering what is lost for Canadians when only people who can afford a Sportsnet subscription can access Saturday night NHL games.Simon Houpt covers sports media and the business of sport for The Globe. He is on the show to explain the big business of broadcasting NHL games in Canada, and what this means for Canadian identity.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

For many Canadians, Saturday nights in the fall and winter mean one thing, hockey. Hockey night in Canada ran for nearly 75 years on the CBC. It featured two NHL hockey games with pre-and-post-game analysis. It's how Ron McLean and Don Cherry became household names. And it was something that Canadians across the country could share. You could say it helped foster a common sense of Canadian identity. But earlier this year, it was announced the iconic program would end because CBC no longer shared the rights to air NHL games with Rogers.

So where does that leave hockey fans? And what does it mean that only Canadians who can pay will now be able to watch Saturday night hockey? Today, Simon Hout joins the show. He's a staff reporter for the Globe who covers sports media and the business of sports. He'll explain the big business of broadcasting NHL games in Canada and what all this means for Canadian identity. I'm Manika Ram and Wilms, and this is the Decibel from the Globe and Mail.

Simon, thank you so much for being here. It's my pleasure. I want to go back to the day earlier this year when it was announced that hockey night in Canada was ending its run on CBC. You, of course, cover sports media, business of sports for the globe. So what did you think, Simon, when you heard that news? I'll be honest with you, when I got that. the press release from SportsNet and CBC, I was actually a little confused because it did not say

that Hockey Night in Canada was going away. It was about two sentences long and it basically said, you know, after this successful 12-year partnership between SportsNet and CBC, the public broadcaster is no longer going to carry NHL games. And then they said, you know, they're going to have new sports strategy going forward to be announced. And I didn't know what to think because it didn't say anything specific other than hockey's ending on Saturday nights. And it actually took a number of phone calls and text messages with the two different networks to figure out that, in fact, hockey night in Canada, as a brand, was disappearing from the airwaves. So what is that kind of confusion, obfuscation maybe? What does that signal to you?

It signaled to me that they didn't really want to talk about that, frankly. And that's understandable because, look, as you indicated, hockey night in Canada on TV had been there for 74 years. As a brand, I mean, this is actually stunning to me. As a brand, it started about 64 years into the history of this country. Okay, it started on radio 1931, Foster Hewitt. Wow. And then, you know, so this was before Newfoundland even joined the country, okay? And that's why when you hear at the beginning of the show, you hear Foster Hewitt from radio saying,

hello Canada and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland. Hello, Canada and hockey fans of the United States and Newfoundland. Anyway, so in 1952, it starts on TV, and then it has this uninterrupted 74-year run. Parents, grandparents, children, families gather every Saturday night and watch this from coast to coast. And it becomes a cultural phenomenon. This is really fascinating to hear kind of about this history and how far back it goes, too. For people who aren't hockey fans, maybe, who aren't maybe attuned to this kind of, you know, every Saturday night appointment viewing for hockey here, just help us understand. And what makes it such, I guess, a beloved cultural moment here?

I think in part it was just that it was always there. But it also is the fact that it is as old as TV in Canada is. It started the same fall, 1952, as Canadian broadcasting started. I will do you favor. I will not sing what is known as Canada's second national anthem. I will not sing the theme song from Hockey Night in Canada. I actually would love it if you wanted to. Please go.

But if you were to put it on, everybody in a Pavlovian sense would just react. They hear that. They know what it is. Even, you know, and when it disappeared from CBC in 2008, TSN bought the rights, there was this national human cry. People were very upset because something was being taken away from them. Even though it was going on to TSN, you know, it was this thing that everybody thought was theirs. So let's dive into this a little bit, Simon. Why exactly did Hockey Night in Canada airing the NHL?

Why did this come to an end? For that, we have to go back to 2014 when Rogers and CBC started a partnership of broadcasting hockey. Rogers, you will recall, had spent $5.2 billion to buy 12 years of rights, national rights for hockey. That was for Saturday nights, Sunday nights and Wednesday nights. But when Rogers bought those rights, they did not have a national over-the-air TV network. CBC is one of the very few over-the-air networks in this country that reaches coast to coast. You know, Rogers had their city TV network. That's not a national network.

And so they needed to reach as big an audience as possible because the NHL, even though they wanted the money, the $5.2 billion, they also wanted to grow the game. They wanted to keep it in every Canadian household. And the only way to do that really at the time was to put it on CBC. So Rogers struck this deal with CBC to air the games. Roger struck the deal. CBC basically handed over their airwaves. Sportsnet Rogers got all of the ad revenue. CBC got some ad time that they then were able to use to promote their own programs.

And it seemed to be a good deal for a time. And then last year, Sportsnet Rogers struck another deal. They renewed their deal with the NHL, another 12 years. But this time, they paid $11 billion for 12 years worth of rights. So that's almost double what they paid initially. It's more than double. It's more than double. They'd gone from 5.2 to 11 billion.

Right. And of course, SportsNet is owned by Rogers. So this is the same company. Same company. That's right. Roger Sports and Media runs Sportsnet. You know, when you're paying $900 million a year for about 500 games, You need to do more than just run ads on CBC or on SportsNet.

You need to get people to actually pay for a subscription. And so SportsNet needed to force people to buy SportsNet because giving it away, as it were, just on CBC, was not going to bring in enough money. Okay. So now they've basically looked for this other revenue stream to kind of recoup the cost, the upfront cost of paying so much money for the rights. That's exactly right. They need the two revenue streams. They need the advertising, and they absolutely need a lot of subscription revenue. Okay.

So if Canadians can't watch NHL hockey on CBC on Saturday nights, where can Canadians find these NHL games this season? Is it only on Sportsnet then? They will get some of their games on Sportsnet. But let's say you're a Leafs fan. And I won't go too deep down this rabbit hole because it depends which is your favorite team. you may get more games. If you're a Canucks fan on Sportsnet, then you would get on elsewhere. But if you're a Leafs fan, you will have to subscribe to Sportsnet.

You'll have to subscribe to TSN, Amazon Prime, where six games, Leif's games will be aired. There's another hitch, which is that if you are subscribing to Sportsnet through your TV provider, and plenty of people still do, at last count it's about $5 million, maybe $5.5.5. half million households in Canada, subscribe to Sportsnet through their TV provider. As like a cable channel then. Just a cable channel. So Sportsnet is going to air two nights of national hockey games, Saturday night and Monday night. But the Monday night games, unless you subscribe to their streaming service specifically, that is to say, not through your TV service, you will have to pay an extra $13 to get the Monday night hockey games.

If you don't do that, you're going to be given basically filler programming. In October, SportsNet does have the baseball playoffs. But after that winds up, you know, you're going to be looking at programs like something called World's Strongest Man. And like Stanley Cup champions, you know, are greatest goals. So that'll be hockey. You know, they'll have like greatest goals or best saves. I mean, these are programs that SportsNet has scheduled. But nobody's going to want to watch that.

They're really saving the prime time stuff behind a paywall. And why would they put good programming against their marquee programming, right? So you were going to have to subscribe to SportsNet Plus in some way. Okay. So with the end of the CBC airing NHL and Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday, ultimately this means Canadians are going to have to pay for special subscriptions if they want to watch this hockey. Simon, I guess this just essentially means then. Like you said, it's just more expensive to be a hockey fan here. It's more expensive than like with everything.

It's more expensive than it's ever been. And yes, if you're a hockey completest and you want to watch all, for example, the games, all of the Leafs games, you know, what we're talking about is $100 a year for Amazon Prime. Sportsnet subscription, if you don't get it through your TV, Sportsnet Plus subscription is $35 a month for what they call standard or $45 a month for premium where you get other games. But basically you're talking between $300 and $350 a year for Sportsnet Plus. And then TSN is another 25 or 30 bucks a month. So again, you're talking about $250 a year or so. That's significant. Yeah, that'll set you back for something that used to at one point be free.

Used to be free, yes. We'll be right back. Simon, we've talked a little bit about the business of airing NHL games and how this is all going to be happening this coming year. Let's bring it back to Hockey Night in Canada, this CBC program. How big of a deal is it for the CBC to lose NHL on Hockey Night in Canada? I think it's a huge blow because at the very least it meant that millions of Canadians were tuning in to CBC. They were used to tuning into CBC.

And even though it was not officially CBC programming, it was all editorially controlled and all of the revenue was going to Roger Sportsnet. The CBC, you know, logo was there and people were acclimated to watching CBC. Also, there were promotions on the programming for CBC. So that is a platform that CBC has just lost. They are no longer going to get one to two million Canadians every Saturday night tuning in to their channel and just being used to seeing, you know, CBC personalities during the commercial breaks, for example. And of course, CBC did announce this week that they're not giving up on Hockey Night in Canada, right? They're actually going to relaunch a new version of this brand. This winter, Hockey Night in Canada, is going to feature P.D.

WHL, which is, of course, the women's pro hockey league. What is the strategy behind this move, Simon? They still owned the Hockey Night and Canada brand, and they were already airing a bunch of PWHL games. They aired them last year, along with TSN, Sportsnet, and Prime. Everybody's airing PWHL games. But what they're doing here is they're finally, because Saturday Night is now free, they're finally putting women's hockey in that marquee time slot. And that's going to be really interesting, first of all, because that's never been done before.

And so there are a lot of people who have very high hopes for what it could do. You know, CBC acknowledged when I spoke with them, they said, look, you know, this is something we really think we can build because women's hockey, the PWHL, it doesn't even have 100% brand recognition. It's not that well known. They believe that by promoting it, they can really make it something. So it sounds like this is going to be a big platform, though, for women's hockey. I mean, this is the national broadcaster running games on Saturday night. It's got to be positive on that perspective. It's certainly going to be a really interesting experiment.

It's also going to be a real challenge because, of course, Sportsnet is going to continue to air their biggest games of the week at the same time. So you've got the NHL versus the PWHL. You would think, oh, my God, that's, you know, a fight that the PWA. is going to lose. But I don't think that takes into account how many people feel about the NHL, about professional hockey. There are certain things that, you know, long-time hockey fans have not liked about the NHL, whether it's the fact that they now have to pay as much as they do.

You know, these pro athletes are making millions and millions of dollars. It's getting harder for regular people to go to games, to watch games. And there are certain elements of the culture, the NHL culture, that a lot of people do not like and they look to the PWHL. I mean, if you go to these games, they are packed, they are positive, they are upbeat. And there are fans in the stands who just do not look like the typical hockey fan. There are kids, lots of girls, lots of young women. It's an amazing experience. And I think if they can capture that and bring that coast to coast, that's going to be a very interesting experiment.

Okay, so maybe some potential new opportunities for women's hockey and how this is broadcast across the country here. I just want to come back to this idea that, you know, NHL hockey is going to be behind this paywall on Saturday nights. Has this ship completely sailed, Simon, is there anything that can be done to preserve free NHL games for Canadians? You know, there is an organization that is trying to seize the moment to say sports and other events of national importance should. be easily accessible to Canadians from coast to coast. So there's an organization called Friends of Canadian Media that has started a campaign to press parliament, to perhaps pass legislation, similar to what they have in a number of countries around the world, most notably in the UK, where about 40 years ago, 35 years ago, the British government passed what's known as the crown jewels of sports. And so there are marquee sports events that are of national, recognized to be of national cultural importance. These are events like the World Cup, the Women's World Cup, Wimbledon Final, rugby final, horse races.

And those events are on a list that the British government maintains and they are free to air. This is fascinating. So these events are deemed nationally, culturally important. And so they say, you know what, this is going to be free for everyone to watch because it's important as a country to have this as a form of identity. This is how we meet as a country. And frankly, here in Canada, hockey used to be how we meet as a country. Nowadays, we meet as a country basically watching the prime minister talk about tariffs. But, you know, we need things, whether it's, you know, the Blue Jays, fantastic World Series run.

That brought the country together, you know, 10, 15 million people every night watching those games. We watched the Olympics in millions by the millions. We watched the World Cup by millions. That was something that brought people together and gave us a sense of national pride. But it was also just something we were all doing together. And especially at this moment where media are fragmenting and everybody's on their own devices, these events are increasingly important. Do you think it's likely that, you know, there's a political moment here then for Prime Minister Mark Carney to maybe enact this kind of legislation?

I'm just thinking about the context, right, of us talking a lot about sovereignty these days and what it means to be Canadian. Is there a moment here where this legislation might actually go somewhere? I think if there's ever a moment now is the time because people are not happy about hockey, NHL hockey going behind the paywall entirely. And they are going to start to feel that loss, especially frankly next April and May. if there's any Canadian team in the playoffs and people will turn on CBC and they'll say, wait a minute, where's my oilers game or where's my Leafs, God willing, in the playoffs? People are going to feel that loss. I don't know how legislation could be retroactive because, you know, this is a 12-year deal that the NHL and Rogers already signed. So I don't know how you could fix that.

But certainly they could create political pressure. And they could also make it likely for in the future when the Olympics or the World Cup comes up for, you know, sail again to ensure that those events that, again, bring the country together, are freely accessible. And of course, this legislation is not happening yet. This is just this. There's a national campaign here to convince MPs to maybe think about this. I guess I'm just wondering about the big picture here because if this doesn't happen, hockey becomes paywalled part of our culture. essentially. What does that mean for our shared sense of Canadian identity and especially hockey's role in that identity? You know, 12 years ago, when Rogers announced that they had

made this landmark deal with the NHL, the NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, came to Toronto and said, we want to make hockey as accessible as possible. We want to grow the game. And I think they've been very successful, but I think this is a step that does not grow the game. I think they will see audiences shrink and that will create a sense of panic in the boardrooms of the NHL. And here in Canada, you know, this Saturday night, tomorrow night, we're going to turn on hockey. Many of us will have not heard the news. We're going to turn on CBC and we're going to say, wait a minute, why am I seeing cricket? Nothing against cricket. Because there's going to be a great audience for that on Saturday nights as well.

But we will not have those shared experiences, those shared spaces. And we're definitely going to feel that loss. Simon, it has been great talking to you. Thank you so much for being here. My pleasure. That was Simon Haupt. He's a staff reporter at the Globe who covers sports media and the business of sports. That's it for today.

I'm Manika Ramman Wilms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy McLaughlin. Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening,

and I'll talk to you next week.