The NHL Network will have the Edmonton Oilers in the U.S. capital Friday night. Hopefully, the channel will pick up the Rogers Sportsnet feed since the Washington feed has the worst announcers.
CBC carries the classic Montréal-Toronto tilt from the Air Canada Centre; City TV will also carry the game. The NHL oddly scheduled the U.S. outdoor game on a Saturday night so the NBC insecurity kicks in with a 2-hour window where no other U.S. team can play until 10 pm Eastern. The CBC doubleheader concludes with San Jose in Vancouver.
Rogers Sportsnet has Hometown Hockey in Nanaimo, BC with a doubleheader. First, the Edmonton Oilers are in Nashville. Then, the Ottawa Senators visit their snowbird fans in southern Florida. Thursday night hockey has P.K. Subban returning to Montréal.
Rogers Sportsnet One has a Calgary home game against the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday.
The NHL Center Ice free preview is supposed to end on Friday. An extra day would give the U.S. audience a hockey option other than the Pennsylvania spectacle. Stay tuned just in case we get an extra day.
There are no Wednesday matinees since March 1 is the NHL trade deadline. Canadians will have choices between TSN and Rogers Sportsnet. The NHL Network will pick up the Rogers feed.
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NHL Network
Friday
Edmonton @ Washington, 7p
Tape delayed
Friday Calgary @ Tampa Bay, 1p
NY Rangers @ Toronto, 3p
Tuesday Ottawa @ Tampa Bay, 1p
Montréal @ New Jersey, 2p
CBC
Saturday
Montréal @ Toronto, 7p
San Jose @ Vancouver, 10p
City
Saturday
Montréal @ Toronto, 7p
Rogers Sportsnet
Friday
Edmonton @ Washington, 7p
Sunday
Edmonton @ Nashville, 5p
Ottawa @ Florida, 7:30p
Thursday
Nashville @ Montréal, 7:30p
Rogers Sportsnet One
Tuesday
Los Angeles @ Calgary, 9p
NHL Center Ice
Friday
Calgary @ Florida, 7:30p
Ottawa @ Carolina, 7:30p
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The Edmonton Oilers have had a good season. And the U.S. TV coverage has reflected that. Though your humble narrator was blacked out, we should appreciate that this was the first time Edmonton was on Hockey Night in Canada on U.S. television since we've covered this beat. Even when the NHL Network would carry the late HNIC game, the Oilers were shut out. The fact that Edmonton will be on again 6 days later has also never happened in that time span.
The Oilers were an interesting team even when they were losing. But they were ignored by U.S. television. There were too many Oilers games to remember that the NHL Network scheduled to carry that were cancelled. NBCSN scheduled its only Oilers telecast last year but managed to cancel that telecast. The 2/5 game against Toronto is the first time the franchise has had any exposure on that U.S. channel.
If Edmonton holds on to reach the playoffs, there will need to be a lot of education for U.S. hockey fans. This team is fun to watch. It's sad to watch how slow U.S. TV has been to recognize that reality.
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During Hockey Day in Canada from Kenora, Ontario, Bobby Ryan talked about being a kid growing up and standing on an imaginary blue line in his basement waiting to sing the national anthem.
"When you go into Vancouver into Canada, [the crowd] sings the entire thing. Most buildings have caught on and done it. But I think Vancouver is still the best at it. I've never heard anything quite like that. It's chill."
We do go out of our way not to single out anything in one particular Canadian city, but the anthem in Vancouver is the best in the NHL. Mark Donnelly brings tremendous energy without being too over the top.
Ryan plays for the Ottawa Senators, so he only makes a single trip to Vancouver. Ryan used to play for Anaheim, so he heard a few more anthems in Vancouver. But Ryan is American, though he did spend some of his childhood in Canada.
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One advantage to getting NHL Center Ice is seeing the Hometown Hockey pregame shows on Sunday nights. I taped what was supposed to be Hometown Hockey and NHL Center Ice didn't show the episode. They show plenty of pregame shows but Hometown Hockey should be guaranteed every week. Not a good sign when people are deciding whether to pay more for NHL Center Ice.
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The bemoaning was loud over the record NHL teams have in the first game from the new 5-day break. Then again, if most teams don't do well, then there is no advantage or disadvantage. If you are a fan of a team just back from break, you aren't likely to watch or attend a game knowing your team will probably lose. A more relevant statistic would be the 5-game record after the 5-day break. Or measure the amount of break by the other time: is the other team playing back-to-back or has a couple of days rest.
I will agree that the 5-day break might be like the All-Star Game: don't have it at the same season as the Olympics or the World Cup.
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Thanks to the NHL.Twitter.com, you can watch the Toronto Maple Leafs on your computer Tuesday night. The Leafs will be in San Jose at 10:30 pm. The house rule is to take the home feed, so the CSN-California feed will be used.
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Dave Strader is one of our favourite U.S. NHL announcers. Strader is battling cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer). Strader has been given a 5-game respite during a Dallas Stars homestand, including a national telecast on NBC Sunday. Strader will work with his regular Dallas partner Daryl Reaugh, a Hockey Night in Canada alum, on the NBC telecast. Canadians and Americans will have a chance to see one of the best on NBC.
Gord Miller works with Pierre McGuire for NBCSN Sunday night in Chicago.
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The NHL Center Ice free preview finally gave us CBC promos. The NHL Network hasn't picked up a CBC feed since December 10, 2016. Hell, the channel hasn't run a HNIC matinee rebroadcast since that weekend.
Bellevue is the new drama starring Anna Paquin that began 2 days after the promos. True North Calling is a documentary series about what it's like to live in the north in Canada.
There were 0 goals in the 2nd period in the late game, yet not enough time for the promos. Have never seen that since we started tracking CBC promos. At least the late game got in all 6 promos. This bears repeating: the CBC gets $0 from ads during Hockey Night in Canada. CBC ran 13½ hours of programming on Saturday. While the network can run promos during the commercial breaks, the 12 on-air promos (none during the matinee game) is all the CBC got for 13½ hours of programming.
Early game: Murdoch Mysteries; Bellevue (1st); Schitt's Creek; Workin' Moms (2nd); Bellevue; True North Calling (3rd)
Late game: Murdoch Mysteries; Bellevue (1st); None (2nd); Schitt's Creek; Workin' Moms; Bellevue; True North Calling (3rd)
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