NBCSN is becoming a less reliable source of Canadian NHL teams and the channel's coverage isn't getting better.
NBC will have the Toronto Maple Leafs on New Year's Day in the Centennial Classic at BMO Field against the Detroit Red Wings. This will be the second NBC game in Canada in the modern era.
NBCSN will have 5 Montréal Canadiens games in the calendar year of 2017. 3 of the 5 games are at the Bell Centre. The only Sunday night game is in Boston; the standard Wednesday night telecasts will be Canadian free. The April 7 telecast falls during the NHL Center Ice free preview, so that game would have been on TV anyway. You can put money on the March 14 telecast being a national simulcast of the local Chicago feed.
The Heritage Classic in Winnipeg will air on the NHL Network. NBCSN scheduled an Edmonton Oilers game last season but conveniently found a reason to cancel the telecast.
NHL Network games in 2015-2016 season analysis
For the second season in a row, the NHL Network is not releasing a full season of telecasts. But like last season, we will analyze the breakdown once the season has concluded.
NBC Group 2016-2017 Canadian NHL teams schedule
| January 1 | Detroit @ Toronto* | 3p | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| January 12 | Montréal @ Minnesota | 8p | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| February 12 | Montréal @ Boston | 7:30p | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| February 23 | N.Y. Islanders @ Montréal | 7:30p | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| March 14 | Chicago @ Montréal | 7:30p | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| April 7 | Tampa Bay @ Montréal | 7:30p | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| All games on NBCSN except for * on NBC. All times Eastern. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CBC After Hours: 2000-2014
After Hours is returning "back by popular demand." Scott Oake goes back to being the reporter for the late game on Hockey Night in Canada. Here is the exact wording. "Back by popular demand, After Hours returns following Game 2 of Hockey Night in Canada. Hosted by Scott Oake, After Hours caps off each Saturday night’s action with insightful, long form post-game interviews with players and special guests."
"There are a lot of great stories around the western teams and we need to tell them," said Scott Moore, president of Sportsnet and NHL for Rogers. This was true in 2014 and 2015, too.
We are hoping the 2.0 version will be somewhat close to what we remember in the CBC days. One potential drawback is that Edmonton Oilers studio analyst and former colour analyst Louie DeBrusk is the new late-night game analyst on Hockey Night in Canada. Drew Remenda represented a significant step up from DeBrusk when the San Jose Sharks let Remenda go after the 2014 season. DeBrusk moved over to the in-between periods analyst position.
Remenda would have made a better western analyst on the national level with DeBrusk doing some Oilers games to help out Remenda. DeBrusk is essentially the replacement for Mike Johnson, one of the many Rogers casualties in the off-season.
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Ron MacLean is back on the Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts, legitimately joyous news. David Amber will host the late edition of Hockey Night in Canada, also good news.
We don't want to downplay those positive adjustments. We like George Stroumboulopoulos a lot but he wasn't used to his potential. Hopefully, Stroumboulopoulos will find something that energizes him and brings us joy.
Rogers Sportsnet upends apple cart that is Hockey Night in Canada
CanadianCrossing.com NHL coverage
There is a lot that will be missing from the telecasts this season. A high level of attention was given to the loss of Glenn Healy and P.J. Stock. Rogers also let go Mike Johnson. These were 3 of the few voices left at Rogers who would speak up on NHL issues. We don't believe in coincidences that they are gone.
Leah Hextall, Chantal Desjardins, Billy Jaffe, Corey Hirsch, and Damien Cox are also gone. Just remember: Rogers isn't losing money … just not making enough money to match their 12-year bid. Glad MacLean is back but the product is being considerably watered down.
These words from Elliotte Friedman ran earlier this summer, but are worth mentioning now that the season is getting underway. This underscores the impact of what Rogers is doing to Hockey Night in Canada.
36. This is where it gets hard. Congratulations to David Amber, who deserves his new opportunity. I’m very happy for him. I loved working for Gord Cutler. And I loved working with my Saturday Headlines co-host Damien Cox, Chantal Desjardins, Leah Hextall, Corey Hirsch, Billy Jaffe, Darren Pang and Rich Sutter.
Cox and Strombo were already at The FAN in Toronto when I started in 1994, so there is a lot of history between us. I interned for Damien and Gord Stellick’s morning show the week Mike Keenan quit as coach of the New York Rangers. Producer Sunil Thakolkaren was hitting monstrous home runs for our old Score softball team 15 years ago.
But there are two people I spent much of the last decade with (in a studio or on the road). I thought we’d work together until our livers failed. My first season at HNIC was 2003-04. At some point during that year, Glenn Healy pulled me aside and said, “You don’t know how to watch practice.” He sat me down and pointed out the critical things to look for. It was the beginning of a fantastic education. I saw the game as a reporter. He (and other ex-NHLers on the staff) taught me how a player processes things. There is no way I’d have made it this long without that lesson. Glenn loves his Chardonnay. One night, we did a game in Montreal and went out after. At 3 am, we went into Dunn’s. Healy yelled: “Give me your best Chardonnay!” which is not exactly what Dunn’s is known for.
The one story he always laughed about came during a playoff series. He said something on the air that angered a coach. The next day was a travel day and he went home to see his family. Before he returned, the coach confronted us about it. Healy wasn’t there to defend himself, so I took the bullet. The coach said later, “I know it wasn’t you, and I’ll tell who did it myself.”
So, I warned Glenn to be ready. After the game, he goes right to the coach, who says, “Hey Glenn!” with a smile and a hug. I was steaming, while he stared at me with a giant (bleep)-eating grin. He loved that one.
37. A few years ago, some of us were at a charity event. There was a fan in a wheelchair we were talking with. All of a sudden PJ Stock started ripping him for some hockey opinion he’d made. I was mortified, just wanted to get as far away from the scene as I possibly could. Then I noticed the guy loved it. He couldn’t get enough. Later, a friend of his came over and said how much the man enjoyed being treated like anyone else, instead of people tiptoeing around him because of his condition. That’s PJ. He has a gift: the ability to tear into you while making you — and everyone else — laugh at the same time.
During the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, we went out to dinner in Vancouver one night and he destroyed everyone at the table. I went to use the washroom and a man next to me said, “Our table is jealous. If we talked to people at work like that, we’d all be fired. You guys just laugh it off.”
Whenever the group was together and laughing hysterically, PJ was in the middle. “Bam-Bam” was a perfect nickname for him. It’s hard to believe it won’t continue with all of those people, but it’s particularly tough to lose Glenn and PJ.
Thanks Elliotte for saying that a lot better and more personal and sharing that with us.
photo credit: CBC Sports
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