, before moving in 2021. On Wednesday nights, Sportsnet airs
Scotiabank Wednesday Night Hockey, which serves as its flagship weekly broadcast. Sportsnet previously had another national weekly broadcast prior to 2024; originally known as
Hometown Hockey, it rebranded into
Monday Night Hockey in 2022 with Rogers Communications as its sponsor. Since 2024, Sportsnet sublicensed
Monday Night Hockey to
Amazon Prime Video, with the latter using a more distinct production and on-air staff. Other all-U.S. games are occasionally shown across the Sportsnet channels, usually simulcast from U.S.
regional or national broadcasters (
ESPN and
TNT, and previously
NBC Sports). Sportsnet also airs coverage of the
Entry Draft. Rogers stated that in combination with its existing regional rights to the
Vancouver Canucks,
Edmonton Oilers, and
Calgary Flames, it would have an effective monopoly on all NHL telecasts in
Western Canada (aside from portions of the Jets' market that are shared with the Flames and Oilers, such as
Saskatchewan). Sportsnet staff emphasized a focus on storytelling throughout its NHL coverage, with a particular focus on the personal lives of the league's top players. Although Sportsnet executive
Scott Moore did explain that Sportsnet's overall goal was to "celebrate" hockey and downplay some of the NHL's recent issues, such as labour disputes, he emphasized that the network would not be the NHL's "cheerleaders", and would still be prepared to discuss issues that affect the game. Sportsnet's coverage also places an emphasis on new technology; referees can be equipped with
helmet cams for first-person perspectives, and a
Skycam was installed at
Air Canada Centre for use in aerial shots. Rogers plans to install Skycam units at each Canadian NHL arena for use in its coverage and the GameCentre Live GamePlus features. In June 2021, Rogers announced that it would move its NHL studio from the Canadian Broadcasting Centre to the
Rogers Building for the
2021–22 season. Two new sets were constructed as part of the "Sportsnet Studios" project, with one area incorporating a curved video wall, as well as support for a
virtual set extension via green screens, and
augmented reality graphics. A new on-air graphics package was also adopted, as well as new theme music by the
alternative rock duo
Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker (USS).
Monday Night Hockey From 2014 to 2022, Sportsnet broadcast
Rogers Hometown Hockey as its second national TV game of the week; the games featured a pre-game show and studio segments hosted by Ron MacLean from different Canadian cities, and profiling their local players and hockey communities. Initially on Sunday nights, the games later moved to Monday nights.
Hometown Hockey was discontinued after the
2021–22 season and replaced by
Rogers Monday Night Hockey; the games place a focus on additional analytics via the NHL's player and puck tracking system, and include an alternate feed for selected games on Sportsnet Now featuring additional on-screen statistics. On April 25, 2024, Rogers announced that
Monday Night Hockey would move to
Amazon Prime Video beginning in the
2024–25 NHL season under a two-year sub-licensing deal.
Hockey Night in Canada (until 2019) and
Ron MacLean (pictured in 2002) are among the
Hockey Night in Canada talent retained by Rogers.
Hockey Night in Canada remains in its traditional Saturday night timeslot, but rather than having games split across
CBC Television stations on a regional basis, multiple games are broadcast nationally, split across CBC, Citytv, and the Sportsnet networks.
FX Canada was also initially involved, with the channel typically airing an all-U.S. game. Three to five games air during the early, 7 p.m. ET window, and two more air on Sportsnet and CBC for the 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT west coast window. Rogers estimated a 300% increase in the number of
Hockey Night games available nationally under the new arrangement. The Winter Classic was removed from CBC's package and moved to Sportsnet for
2016. CBC's games are no longer produced by
CBC Sports and Rogers sells all advertising during the telecasts, but CBC is still provided with advertising time for its own programming. In order to assign responsibility for the content of the telecasts, compliance with regulatory guidelines, and advertising to Rogers, its NHL telecasts on CBC are legally considered to be broadcast by a part-time television network owned by the Sportsnet subsidiary, which is affiliated with CBC's English-language television stations. A license for this arrangement was approved by the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in April 2015. Some of CBC's personalities and production staff were retained for the new
Hockey Night in Canada—certain staff members, such as producers Joel Darling and Sherali Najak, remain employed by the CBC, while some jumped to Rogers entirely. From 2014 through the 2015–16 season,
Ron MacLean was replaced as host by
George Stroumboulopoulos. Ron MacLean and Don Cherry continued to present their traditional ''Coach's Corner
segment during the first intermission of Hockey Night'' games up until November 9, 2019. CBC President
Hubert T. Lacroix, in notifying CBC employees of the deal in an internal memo, noted that the new sub-licensing arrangement with Rogers "may not be the ideal scenario [for the CBC] but, it is the right outcome for Canadian hockey fans", as it allowed the NHL and the
Hockey Night in Canada brand to remain on CBC and be made available to a wider audience with minimal cost to the public broadcaster, which has gone through reductions in funding in recent years. In turn, CBC announced in April 2014 that it would cut a total of 657 jobs across its divisions, and no longer pursue broadcast rights to professional sporting events. The loss of
Hockey Night was cited as a factor to the budget cuts, but was also credited to the performance of CBC's entertainment programming. The sub-licensing deal was initially announced as lasting for four years; CBC staff described the agreement as a means of providing a "structured exit from hockey" in the event that Rogers does not extend the agreement. The deal was also considered a low-cost means of allowing CBC to maintain a level of major sports output in the lead-up to future
Olympic Games and the
2015 Pan-American Games, whose rights are owned outright by CBC. In the case of the Olympics, CBC's coverage is sub-licensed to Rogers and Bell Media networks under a similar time-brokerage and production subsidization arrangement. In 2017,
The Globe and Mail reported that the CBC and Rogers had quietly extended the agreement into a fifth season, while Moore stated that he wished to extend the partnership further. On December 19, 2017, Rogers announced that it had renewed this arrangement through the remainder of its current NHL contract.
Regional coverage As of the 2019–20 season, Sportsnet's regional feeds collectively hold regional broadcast rights to four of the seven Canadian NHL franchises: the
Toronto Maple Leafs on Sportsnet Ontario (split with
TSN4), the
Calgary Flames and
Edmonton Oilers on Sportsnet West, and the
Vancouver Canucks on Sportsnet Pacific. The
Montreal Canadiens,
Ottawa Senators, and
Winnipeg Jets have regional television deals with TSN, and the
Buffalo Sabres' Canadian regional rights are held by TSN parent company
Bell Canada. In the 2013–14 season, Sportsnet lost the Senators to TSN, but acquired rights to the Canadiens to replace them on Sportsnet East under a three-year deal. TSN's owner Bell holds an ownership stake in the Canadiens, as well as its regional French-language rights. Both Rogers and Bell own stakes in the Maple Leafs and split broadcast rights between them. On January 6, 2021, Rogers announced extended regional rights agreements with both the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames under the terms of a new multi-year deal. On April 7, 2025, following the passing of former NHL player and Sportsnet announcer
Greg Millen, Sportsnet decided not to produce their own broadcast of a
Calgary Flames road game at the
San Jose Sharks out of respect to Millen. They instead carried a feed of the Sharks' home network,
NBC Sports California.
Post-season The Sportsnet networks and CBC share in coverage of the
Stanley Cup playoffs under the
Hockey Night in Canada banner. Typically, first and second round series involving Canadian teams and some high-profile all-American series are broadcast on CBC and Sportsnet, with Rogers providing broadcast crews for these series. Other series use the broadcast feed from the American networks. Selected games are simulcast with
Punjabi-language commentary on
Omni Television. All games from the conference finals onward are simulcast with CBC. Like in the previous national deal with CBC and TSN, the league still gives U.S. rights-holders (
ESPN,
ABC and
TNT hold the national American TV rights as of 2021) the first choice of games and times during the playoffs. As then-rightsholder NBC preferred afternoon playoff games on the weekends, there were at least two Saturdays in May 2015 that did not have a post-season night game. In the alternating years where ABC is the broadcaster of the Stanley Cup Finals, its coverage is simulcasted on Citytv as an alternate to the CBC/Sportsnet broadcast, allowing Rogers to enforce
simultaneous substitution rights on the feeds of ABC affiliates that are retransmitted within Canada.
World Cup of Hockey Sportsnet and TVA Sports held broadcast rights to the
2016 World Cup of Hockey, organized by the NHL and the
NHL Players Association. Although it was initially reported that Rogers was allowed to match competing bids for the rights per its NHL rights contract, blocking a competing bid by TSN, NHL Commissioner
Gary Bettman denied that there was such a stipulation, and that the bidding process was "competitive". Similarly to
HNIC, CBC aired Sportsnet-produced coverage of the tournament's semi-finals and final series. == Personalities ==