Canadian NHL fans may believe they’re in hockey heaven later this year when Rogers Media will begin its onslaught of game coverage. The media company, which recently signed a new broadcasting deal with the league, announced that it will be screening over 500 regular season games during the 2014-15 NHL campaign.
Rogers will broadcast the contests on 13 different networks starting next season, and the games will also be able to be viewed on many types of mobile devices and platforms.
Scott Moore, who is the president of Rogers’ Sportsnet network, said the company is working closely with the NHL to make sure it can offer the most important and attractive match-ups to its Canadian viewers.
He stated that there will be two conventional television networks that will be able to broadcast up to seven games on a Saturday night. There will also be a new national hockey night created for broadcasts on Sundays and Wednesdays will be another busy night for Rogers.
Moore held a press conference on Feb. 4 in Toronto to announce the expanded coverage. Joining him were Keith Pelley, the president of Rogers Media, former All-Star player Mark Messier and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.
Pelley said the great thing for viewers is the length of the contract Rogers and the NHL agreed to. This means Canadians can be guaranteed extensive hockey coverage for years to come. Rogers signed a 12-year contract with the league in November that is worth $5.2 billion to the NHL.
The media company now has exclusive national broadcasting rights to every single NHL game on all levels of media platforms. The contract will last until the end of the 2025-26 season, as it includes the Stanley Cup Final, every playoff game, the annual All-Star contest, the NHL Draft and the league’s Game Centre Live and NHL Centre Ice broadcasting properties.
Bettman claimed that no other sport has ever signed such an exclusive deal with a broadcasting company and it’s a dream come true for the league, Rogers and hockey fans.
Rogers has contracted some of its Saturday Night games to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and that network will continue to air the famous "Hockey Night in Canada" show.
However, there will be additional game coverage on several other Rogers networks such as City TV, TVA Sports 2, TVA Sports, TVA, Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet ONE, Sportsnet and FX Canada. Rogers plans on showing between three and five contests live at 7 pm ET on Saturdays with one or two more games beginning at 10 pm or 10:30 pm ET from the west coast.
On Sunday nights, Rogers will introduce a show called "Hometown Hockey," which will broadcast games at 7 p.m. ET on the City TV platform. All Sunday contests will feature a Canadian team and the hosting studio will be set up at a different community hockey arena across Canada each week.
There will also be Sunday night games on the Sportsnet ONE and Sportsnet channels. Sportsnet will also show Wednesday night games nationally and a pair of American clubs will be featured over on Sportsnet ONE.
In addition to the national games that Rogers will show, the Sportsnet platform will air 82 regular season games for the Edmonton Oilers, Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames along with at least 53 games of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Forty of the Maple Leafs contests will be shown nationally across Canada with at least 13 regional contests. When it comes to U.S. franchises taking on each other, a minimum of 100 games will be broadcast nationally on the Sportsnet 360 and Sportsnet ONE channels. Sportsnet ONE will also air regular showdowns on Thursday nights.
Rogers’ current 30-minute analysis and news program named "Hockey Central" will be expanded to 60 minutes each evening, and on weekends the network will broadcast pre-game shows at 5 p.m. ET, a full two hours before the puck drops on its evening games.
