The year is 2013 and Bob McKenzie decided to be the funniest person on the internet. He decided to break the hockey world and announce that Rogers Sportsnet was going to get exclusive national rights to the NHL in Canada, effectively ending Hockey Night in Canada as well as TSN’s Wednesday Night games (those weren’t iconic, but did feature the HNIC theme song for a bit). McKenzie did this ahead of the NHL and Rogers announcement because he could and honestly, it was the funniest part of the entire situation. But will Rogers keep the national rights for all games when the deal is up in two years?
Let’s be honest: no one knows and this piece has been re-written since Shohei Ohtani announced he was signing with the LA Dodgers and not the Toronto Blue Jays. Rogers has every reason to keep the exclusive rights however the rights are not as lucrative as they first thought and who knows if Rogers will keep them. Rogers originally got the rights under Scott Moore and he resigned in 2018 with the acquisition of the NHL rights being seen as a failure because they under-delivered on their promises to advertisers.
This is not to say that Rogers have not made strides in NHL coverage in Canada. They have managed to get Don Cherry off air which was needed. They have added gender diversity to their panel with Jennifer Botterill being a staple on their panel. They have added Harnarayan Singh to their rotation of play by play announcers; moving him from Hockey Night in Punjabi. David Amber hosting is once again, a welcome change from what used to be an old, white, male set up. Rogers has had missteps and had moments where they forgot hockey fans hate change, but they have managed to change parts for the better without rocking the boat too much. Their gradual changes have made the broadcast more diverse while still involving a lot of productive conversation.
Will Rogers bid on exclusive rights to the NHL in Canada when the process starts again? Probably. Will they offer the same (ridiculous) bid they did last time? I doubt it. It was not good for them at least in the early days. And while I do wish we still had some parts of the old deal with CBC, specifically the Saturday afternoon games on CBC, the Rogers deal has not been bad for the NHL and hockey in Canada. If only Rogers could make their streaming more attainable.
