Hockey Night in Canada: A cultural tradition forever changed

As cultural shifts go, this one is about as Canadian as they come.

When the puck drops this fall on the National Hockey League’s 2026-27 season, for the first time in nearly three-quarters of a century there will be no games available on CBC. Hockey Night in Canada, as Canadian sports fans have known it for generations, has ceased to be.

The public broadcaster and Rogers Sportsnet — the rights-holder to NHL hockey in this country, which in April signed a 12-year, $11-billion renewal of its exclusive national deal — were unable to come to terms on a new sub-licensing agreement that would allow HNIC to continue as the Saturday-night CBC tradition that has been part of the Canadian TV-watching experience since, well … forever.

To be accurate, Hockey Night had existed as a CBC staple since 1936, when the public broadcaster was established as a radio service, and became part of the Saturday-night schedule when CBC’s TV service arrived in 1952.

For decades, Canadians’ love for hockey guaranteed HNIC was a massive revenue-driver for CBC, but with the arrival of sports-focused specialty networks such as TSN (in 1984) and Sportsnet (1998), the economics of TV sports shifted significantly. Cable network owners — most notably Bell Media and Rogers Media — had the economic wherewithal and strategic inclination to spend huge amounts for exclusive rights to broadcast professional sports, and the perennially budget-strapped CBC could not compete as NHL rights-deal figures rose into the multiple billions.

When Rogers inked a then-unprecedented 12-year, $5.2-billion rights deal in 2013, CBC was effectively out of the hockey business. In what amounted to mostly a nostalgic nod to HNIC’s so-called “Saturday night tradition,” a sub-agreement was reached to allow CBC to carry games, but Rogers maintained editorial control of the program and managed all aspects of advertising. (A separate sub-licensing agreement was negotiated for French-language broadcasts of NHL games on Quebec-based TVA).

Under the new arrangement, CBC spent nothing on broadcast rights and received none of the associated revenue. And while there was a certain quaintness to continuing the HNIC “tradition” on the public broadcaster, its presence on CBC’s Saturday-night schedule also meant televised hockey in a free, over-the-air format remained accessible for those few Canadians for whom subscription-based cable and/or streaming services remain unavailable, unreliable or unaffordable.

In that context, the demise of CBC’s version of Hockey Night does represent a sad day in Canadian television history. Most hockey-watchers across the country, whose cable/streaming packages offer access to multiple NHL games nearly every night of the week, will barely notice the absence of CBC as a viewing alternative. But for those in northern and remote locales or without the financial means to afford cable/streaming options, the loss of old-time HNIC really is the end of an era.

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Rogers says it is committed to maintaining a sense of tradition in its Saturday-night content; for its part, CBC says it will use that coveted weekend timeslot to air programming that capitalizes on the popularity of its recent Winter Olympics coverage by creating content that highlights and celebrates Canadian athletes in other sports. Some have speculated CBC’s Saturday-night reinvention might also include broadcasts of Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) games.

While much remains to be seen, this much is clear: in the big-dollar realm of TV-rights wheeling and dealing, the eventual end of CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada was a foregone conclusion. The “tradition” had been in overtime for quite some time, so its death was anything but sudden.