The Slow Death of Hockey Night in Canada
In the lead up to this past Saturday’s Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) broadcast, the CBC promoted the Leafs vs. Canadiens and Oilers vs. Flames match-ups as two epic rivalries. Yes, another night of can’t miss viewing from the national broadcaster. Meanwhile, another key Canucks’ game (this time a rematch of last year’s Western Conference final) went ignored.
And paired with the CBC passing on possibly the biggest NHL regular season match of the year just over two weeks ago when the Canucks versus Bruins encounter exceeded expectations, it’s easy to point towards an obvious eastern bias at the network. But what’s really happening here, HNIC’s slow but steady decline, is the bigger story.
Pulling four teams from the mix of 30 NHL squads, you’d be hard pressed to find a collection of more irrelevant franchises than what the CBC offered up to the nation this past Saturday.
The Maple Leafs, though on the brink of a possible playoff spot, have the longest post-season drought of any Canadian team and once again are the soap opera that no one outside of Ontario cares about.
The Canadiens (were they ever really called Les Glorieux?) are officially “dead” so says a feature article in the most recent Sportsnet magazine. Though dead would imply that there is no farther to fall. At this point, the Habs are shockingly closer to an unimaginable playoff spot than last place overall. Perhaps they can part with tradition even further by selecting a francophone coach with their top 5 entry draft pick.
Moving west, an aging Calgary squad (over half of their players are over 30) continues to put off the rebuilding project that should have commenced two seasons ago.
And the Oilers, loaded with talented young forwards that can’t stay healthy, are ensuring themselves of another sweet pick this summer. Perhaps they ought to draft a defenseman this time around.
Meanwhile, the two most successful Canadian franchises (by far) of this century, Ottawa and Vancouver, continue to get the short end of the stick from the powers that be at CBC.
And here in Vancouver, the Canucks don’t really care. If the CBC won’t broadcast epic games like the Stanley Cup rematch of a few weeks ago or this past Saturday’s entertaining win over San Jose, Sportsnet surely will. And with the numbers generated by those broadcasts, both Sportsnet and the Canucks are quite happy (since revenues generated by a CBC broadcast don’t accrue specifically back to the teams involved while those from a regional Sportsnet broadcast would or, at least, could).
The CBC, in their own defense, have argued that they can only broadcast 14 Canuck games this season and they are full up with a back loaded allotment. Though it’s hard to figure why a March date versus Columbus, for example, is a preferable draw over the last two Saturday Canuck omissions. They would further argue that they didn’t like the early start times of the San Jose and Boston games. Though any time they pull off a Hockey Day in Canada themed event, they welcome these same times.
At any rate, the distribution of broadcast rights and the economics involved have clearly changed. CBC and HNIC no longer have a monopoly on NHL Saturday nights. The teams have options. And a team like the Canucks, who have had issues in the past with their coverage on CBC, might be inclined to intentionally schedule game times that the national network won’t want.
And from a broadcast perspective, much of what HNIC is offering up is either stale or executed better by the competition. Of course, the signature theme song is now long gone. And the Ron MacLean and Don Cherry sideshow, once the centrepiece of a HNIC broadcast, is now just irrelevant bluster coupled with zero objectivity from both the the loud mouth Cherry and the straight man MacLean. And the intermission “hot stove” format pioneered by the network is now available on Sportsnet or TSN on an almost continuous basis. In many respects, HNIC is the old dog, incapable of new tricks.
As long time hockey fans, we find this to be a very sad turn of events. HNIC was once a national institution. It’s now more nearly a national disgrace. As we view hockey highlights on Youtube, the banners promoting CBC’s latest comedy, Mr D., are ever present. Meanwhile, back on the television, the best games of the national pastime are nowhere to be seen.
I live in Toronto now and I am rarely able to find the Canucks on TV. I am stuck getting the highlights the next day from my PS3’s shitty “NHL Game Center” app.
I do stream them on the radio sometimes.
But! However low the production standards have fallen on the CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada, they will ALWAYS be better than the shitty production from TSN. And I do get a perverse joy from watching Don Cherry’s brain decay and rot in real time.
