The pilot episode of a TV series isn't always where a series is going. Take that into account with the premiere this week on Monday Night Hockey on Amazon Prime Video Canada.
The camera work immediately outside the Bell Centre and around Montréal was gorgeous: shots of Montréal from the island, on top of Mont Royal, and even the portrait of Leonard Cohen.
The graphics were sharp and looked good. The innovation was the dimming of the team in the score bug when that team is not on the power play. That will be intriguing once we get a short-handed goal.
Andi Petrillo, who hosts a studio show called NHL Coast to Coast on Thursdays, was in the Scott Oake type role on the telecast. Adnan Virk hosted the studio segments from Montréal this week though we wonder whether the studio show will go to the United States. Mark Messier did the majority of the talking on the panel, which is not good news. Blake Bolden, whom Messier kept pointing out was a defenceman, only got to speak after Messier was done.
They had an interview with Montréal Canadiens owner Geoff Molson.
The coverage featured players in pre-game interviews and bumpers. The introduction mentioning fights and playoff beards, though its coverage won't extend to the NHL playoffs.
We presume the announcers were on site, though we only saw Thomas Hickey (on-ice analysis) on camera. John Forslund, who has been known to pretend to be in Canada, was allegedly there based on this tweet. Jody Shelley provided analysis, hopefully on site. We don't mean to be cynical but we saw what happened last spring during the playoffs on TNT.
Rogers sponsored the second intermission and the Prime Video coverage did cross promote with national games on Rogers Sportsnet.
Lars Eller scored a goal for Pittsburgh. My mind went to Eller's career with Les Habs but none of the announcers mentioned that note. Eller scored a second goal for the Penguins. Petrillo noted that when she interviewed Eller during the intermission. Virk reinforced that point and mentioned the years 2010-2016.
This is a symptom of what is likely to come. Coverage in the moment and a few days before. No context of note. Certainly no "so-and-so played junior hockey in Sudbury" type of analysis.
As much as we have loved the Canadian take on covering hockey, your humble narrator has heard from many Canadians who think the Americans cover the sport better. The debut of Monday Night Hockey on Prime Canada felt like American coverage with better graphics.
The games aren't the only wrinkle in what Prime Canada wants to bring to the NHL: this includes NHL Coast to Coast and Faceoff: Inside the NHL. The streaming service gets points for not doing odd things such as Apple TV+'s MLB coverage with percentage likeliness of actions within a game.
As for whether Canadian hockey fans should subscribe to Amazon Prime Video subscribers, you likely might want the programs more than the games. Maybe your favourite team isn't even in Canada. Using the Apple TV+ example, I was [upset] about the Toronto-Cubs game on a Friday. Listened to the game on the radio, which was not fun. I didn't care much about it a week later.
Some older people might associate Monday Night Hockey with Peter Puck, who appeared on CBC and NBC back in the day. That was the past. This is the future of sports programming and almost certainly will be part of the new Canadian TV NHL contract in 2026.
You can check the Prime Canada schedule (subject to change). Our American friends can watch those games on ESPN+, subject to local blackouts.
Congratulations to Matt Cullen, the new Ottawa Senators play by play in English on TSN5. Cullen replaces Jon Abbott, who moved on to cover the Calgary Flames for Rogers Sportsnet West. Cullen will call the Ottawa Senators games that Gord Miller won't call for TSN.
You can find out more about Cullen since the NHL ran a story. Bell Media didn't even give us the news. We wish Cullen much luck and hope things work out. Cullen worked a lot on the recent CBC coverage of the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
The Ottawa backup position is one of the worst gigs in that you don't get a regular rhythm with a team. The Ottawa backup position is great if you aren't used to working a NHL gig so you can learn along the way. Abbott and Victor Findlay were those people when Chris Cuthbert jumped to Sportsnet. They worked their way into regular gigs: Abbott in Calgary TV and Findlay in Canadiens radio with upgrades to TV when Bryan Mudryk calls curling.
Ray Ferraro got the NHL season off to a furious start. Ferraro called games in Seattle and Salt Lake City (this feels weird to type that out) on opening night for ESPN. Then Ferraro worked the Canucks home opener in Vancouver for Rogers Sportsnet.
That is a new wrinkle for Ferraro this season: being able to do elevated national games for the Canucks. We presume last year he was limited because of his previous TSN contract.
Ferraro has said he will do at least 22 Vancouver Canucks games for Rogers Sportsnet Pacific besides his ESPN duties. In a radio interview, Ferraro said 11 of those will be before Christmas.
Landon Ferraro — son of Ray Ferraro — is now an intermission analyst on Sportsnet Pacific's Canucks coverage.
Sara Orlesky is back as the host for Winnipeg Jets home games on TSN3. Orlesky replaces John Lu in the role, though Lu handles sideline duties for Winnipeg Blue Bombers games. Then again, Lu is a TSN employee while Orlesky works for the NHL team.
Orlesky noted working with Lu in this tweet. So perhaps there is room for both of them.
Still better to have an independent person in that role, even if everyone loves Orlesky.
Gary Bettman runs a Swiss clock type process in almost anything. Betttman told Sports Business Journal that negotiations for the new Canadian TV deal would start at the beginning of 2025. The new deal would start with the 2026-2027 NHL season.
Bettman said Rogers has an exclusive negotiating period. Rogers has said it intends to pursue a renewal of its broadcast rights. No one believes Rogers will be alone in the new TV deal.
We definitely won't know a thing until perhaps the fall of 2025. We can't be as shocked as we were over the Rogers deal for 2014.
This is a scene from the Montréal Forum, the long-time home of Les Canadiens. This is from Montréal Stories, a 1991 Canadian film with 6 short stories about the largest city in Quebec (review to come shortly).
In La Dernière partie from Michel Brault, Madeleine (Hélène Loiselle) confronts Roger (Jean Mathieu) about a divorce after 40 years of marriage.
Roger mentions Guy Carbonneau in the film. The Habs are hosting the Buffalo Sabres, circa 1990 or 1991.
You might recall that Michel Brault did Les Ordres, one of the best Canadian films of all time. Brault was also a wonderful cinematographer.
Editor's note: This NHL notebook has been updated as of October 20 with this TVA item.
There were moments in the Rogers local contract (2014-2016) with the Montréal Canadiens where some early season games aired in English on CJNT 62, the Citytv station in Montréal. The Saturday night Habs games air on Citytv (CJNT-62) or CBC (CBMT-6).
November 9 marks a rare occasion where Les Canadiens will be over-the-air en Francaise. TVA, the over-the-air Quebecor network, will carry the Montréal-Toronto game. Viewers in Montréal can watch on CFTM-10 as well as TVA Sports.
CBMT (CBC in Montréal) should have that same game via Hockey Night in Canada in English.
Ici Radio-Canada Télé, known in French as Société Radio-Canada (SRC), had a rich history of carrying Les Canadiens on La Soirée du hockey on Saturday nights (CBFT-2 in Montréal).
RDS took over the rights to Habs games during the 2002-2003 season. Then Radio-Canada agreed to produce La Soirée du hockey to air on Radio-Canada and RDS. This lasted until after the 2004 NHL playoffs. RDS produced Le Hockey du samedi soir for the next 2 seasons, airing on Radio-Canada outside Quebec.
The PWHL schedule is out, running November 30 through February 1. There are some TBA arenas in the schedule, perhaps for a larger venue. We covered the new arenas and nicknames in our preview. Hopefully, this schedule will be updated so we know where to watch in both countries.
Welcome to the first of occasional NHL notebooks. We said we would cut down on our NHL coverage. Our notebooks will not run this often. We just needed to clean up after the start of the 2024-2025 NHL season.
Thanks for indulging us in our reduced NHL coverage.
photo credits: NHL; Amazon Prime Video Canada; Montréal Stories
Twitter captures: @SportsOnPrimeCA; @NHLJets; @RJHenderson7
