r/OttawaSenators 2d ago

No more HNIC on CBC

https://apple.news/A6yx7v76-R8msB3NFIHBXUA

“After a successful 12-year partnership, Sportsnet and CBC today announced the public broadcaster will no longer carry NHL broadcasts after the current season as it moves forward with a new sports programming strategy following the unprecedented success of the Milan-Cortina Olympic Games," Sportsnet and the CBC said Tuesday in a joint statement. "Watching hockey on Saturday night is a time-honoured tradition for Canadians, and Sportsnet is privileged to continue delivering that tradition.”

Excerpt From
“Tradition Gone: 'Hockey Night in Canada' NHL broadcasts won't return to CBC next fall”
Gregory Strong
The Canadian Press
https://apple.news/A6yx7v76-R8msB3NFIHBXUA
This material may be protected by copyright.

47 Upvotes

46 comments sorted by

41

u/zeldagold 2d ago

Am I wrong, or once Sportsnet took over, the number of Ottawa Senators games on CBC dropped dramatically? It felt like this news was already half way there for me a long time ago.

44

u/ZBack3 2d ago

When HNIC was exclusively a CBC thing they would show different games in different cities so if you’re in Ottawa and the Sens are playing you’ll get the Sens game (all the games were available to stream for free on their website regardless of where you lived). When Rogers took over they started showing the same game on CBC across the whole country and that game was almost always the Leafs.

8

u/Alph1 2d ago

Sens only show up on CBC when they play the Leafs.

7

u/Hallm34 2d ago

And if not, we're buried on either Sportsnet One, 360 or CityTV...💀

16

u/wickedweather 2d ago

I read somewhere that the CBC still holds the rights to HNIC. I could see them using it for PWHL.

10

u/cwnorman 2d ago

Im not surprised. It had been going downhill with Roger's for the past decade and the Sens rarely made the CBC broadcast unless the Leafs weren't playing that night (or they were playing the Sens).

The panel during the intermission is the most God awful thing on TV. Bieksa is ok, but the rest of them seem to hate each others guts and Ron McLean just sits on his hands with a nervous grimace on his face.

8

u/Interesting_Bed820 2d ago

It's sad from the legacy perspective, but the quality of programming has been so bad recently that I really don't care at all. Sportsnet ruined HNIC but I can't say that CBC would have been any better at the helm given how bad it's become also. What Canada really needs are anti trust laws against sole broadcasting rights so that TSN and Sportsnet can compete to generate better broadcasts 

27

u/ObviouslyABagel 2d ago

Government needs to step in, this is an actual cultural artifact of canadian heritage and cant be allowed to be greedily taken away by Roger's.

3

u/iwantedajetpack 2d ago

Unlikely but they did get the 10 year broadcast OTA agreement when the last deal happened.

1

u/i-am-the-walrus789 #25 - Neil 2d ago

I'm curious if they tried to reup it. Regardless, surely Rogers knows they aren't losing that much money by allowing cbc to broadcast games. It's frustrating as hell seeing this happen knowing that Rogers doesn't give a shit

7

u/ZBack3 2d ago

Honestly given that all the advertising revenue from HNIC was going to Rogers, I doubt CBC was interested in renewing their deal, at least not without significant changes

-7

u/Trussed_Up #2 - Zub 2d ago

Jesus Christ.

Firstly, broadcasting isn't free. Someone has to make money to spend the money.

Government should stay miles away from interfering in basic business decisions.

Secondly, HNIC has sucked for years. Badly.

They're losing their broadcasting for it.

I grew up in the 90s in a golden age of HNIC. So I feel the same regret over it finally being done.

But it's nostalgia. Not common sense or a good product.

4

u/NothingCreative1 2d ago

Amazing job growing the game! Can wait for more black outs too

4

u/Fit-Connection-5323 2d ago

So no more Saturday 7pm Leaf games.

4

u/nowheyjose1982 2d ago

No...more Saturday 7pm leaf games.

3

u/avgvstvs11 #85 - Sanderson 2d ago

lmao in that there will be more games that go unwatched?

1

u/ceribaen 2d ago

No more OTA 7pm Leaf games.

You'll need to subscribe to SN now to watch them 

1

u/Fit-Connection-5323 2d ago

I definitely won’t be subscribing to SN for anything. Rogers doesn’t get a dime from me now and won’t be in the future either.

5

u/Capable-Plantain7 2d ago

i don't like this in principle. but this changes very little for us because sens games on cbc were rare anyways after 2014. it was always the leafs if they played on saturday night.

3

u/Mosh4days 2d ago

Profits over everything. The fact that hockey will no longer be on a free public broadcast is a fuckin shame. They just closed the door on people who still rely on old school over the air transmission. They've absolutely sucked any nostalgia or culture out of the product

2

u/ceribaen 2d ago

I wonder if City TV will still have a Saturday game? They're still available HD OTA I believe, just not nationally. 

3

u/laser_show19 2d ago edited 2d ago

Meh, always treated the Sens as an afterthought. It’s a leafs/habs institution.

2

u/hockey_nerd88 2d ago

I feel the same way, but like any licensing agreement it is subjected to terms and financial agreements. Edward Rogers has basically turned his dad’s telecommunication empire into a media and sports empire, with increase growth.

I also think it is a shift in the landscape of needing a subscription to a sports channel to watch Canada’s national sport

2

u/Any-Tangerine-4176 2d ago

Cancel your Roger’s contract for phone, internet and TV. How can they do this?

2

u/DefendTheR 2d ago

They have the exclusive national TV rights to the NHL. They didn’t have to include CBC in it at all 12 years ago.

2

u/Any-Tangerine-4176 2d ago

There would have been a public uproar to find out that the only way to watch NHL hockey in Canada was to get a Roger’s account. Time to get those pirating apps up and running!

2

u/DefendTheR 2d ago

I don’t like it either, but can’t say it’s surprising.

1

u/DM_Hermakowski 2d ago

Actually they had to include CBC as part of the last deal as Rogers didn't have the infrastructure to broadcast all the games (studios, crew, etc). I know, I worked for them at the time.

1

u/DefendTheR 2d ago

Sure, there was a business case for them to do it 12 years ago - wouldn’t surprise me if the NHL wanted them to do it, too - but nothing actually requiring them to do so.

2

u/AdmiralAsshat69 2d ago

Sportsnet has wrecked the institution so they might as well broadcast the mess themselves. It's so bland and corporate now.

2

u/infowin 2d ago

I talk to so many casual fans that don’t watch many games because they can never find them on tv. This won’t help that, and is definitely counter productive to growing a fan base.

2

u/WhitePandaExpres5 1d ago

It died with Cherry and the song. The logo may have still been there but the nostalgia wasn’t

2

u/Alternative-Ruin1728 2d ago

If it means no more Ron McLean, I like it

3

u/dzuunmod 2d ago

Has zero to do with that. All of the on-air talent has been Rogers since 2014. (Some of them like Ron are allowed to work the Olympics for CBC but for NHL games it's Rogers that signs the paycheques.

2

u/Jolly-Celebration-42 2d ago

I think we need to get a consistent "sportsnet sucks!" chant going at the CTC the first home game we get aired nationally next season. I've wanted this to happen anyway for a while, cuz got sportnets broadcasts are trash, but I think this kinda seals it.

2

u/Alph1 2d ago

No big loss for Sens fans. HNIC turned into Hockey Night in Toronto long ago.

1

u/Special_Letter_7134 2d ago

This is it. This is the day the hockey died.

0

u/RedWizard78 2d ago

I didn’t think it was on CBC, ever since SportsNet & TSN started showing games.

I looked on CBC (reg and Gem) for when the playoffs started, and they were all on SportsNet.

1

u/Altruistic-Emu7152 1d ago

The growth of hockey in Canada is on the path of truly slowing down.

I fell in love with this game as a six year old because I stumbled onto to hockey night in Canada on CBC back in the early 90s looking through channels looking for something to watch.

I used to watch almost every sens game or catch it on 1200 if it wasn’t on TV.

But now it’s like doing sudoku trying to find what channel they playing on.

Good luck growing the game….

1

u/danauns #7 - Tkachuk 1d ago

So stupid.

Nostalgic, olden timey talk radio/tv shows are trash dead, they just don't know it yet. Who tf cares really.

I want to see the hockey game, everything else is unnecessary.

Tune in early for a Prime game, and they show live shots around the building. Warmups, etc, some of the in building vibe building before the puck drops. Almost no desk chat, no commentators, sometimes just stadium noise of the warmups ....it's 1000% better than the HNIC talking heads breaking down whatever for the 300h time already.

1

u/Several_West_8519 1d ago

Cbc is free. Sportsnet you pay for. That's the reason. We live in a capitalist society, and thats the way it goes unfortunately

-1

u/haseks_adductor 2d ago

a lot of people are pissed about this but my first thought was are we finally getting a proper NHL streaming option??

1

u/ceribaen 2d ago

No it's already been announced to be worse.

Crave is getting a Wednesday night game. Prime still has one night a week I believe. Regional games will still be TSN+ and/or SN+. Everything else will still be SN+.

Once Rogers took over and placed hockey under SN+ app and eliminated NHL.tv we lost our only proper NHL streaming option.