A total of 115 games will air on multiple distribution platforms: 81 games on TSN and 34 games on TSN2, with games also available on TSN.ca.
For the first time ever, all games on TSN and TSN2 will be available in High Definition, along with pre-games and intermissions airing from TSN’s now fully HD NHL studio.
This year’s combined 115-game broadcast package marks the start of TSN/TSN2’s new six-year broadcast and digital rights agreement with the NHL. Seventy-one regular season games on TSN will feature at least one Canadian team, with select games available on TSN.ca. TSN will also produce and televise a total of five pre-season games, marking the first time in more than 10 years TSN will air pre-season action. All 115 games will be available in High Definition.
Wednesdays continue to be appointment television on TSN as Molson Canadian Wednesday Night Hockey returns to the network with 29 games. TSN will retain exclusivity of Wednesday night hockey, during which there are no other national or local telecasts on other Canadian networks.
Augmenting TSN’s coverage, TSN2 will air an additional 34 live NHL match-ups during the 2008-09 regular season including six exclusive games with Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins, and five games with last season’s scoring champion, and Hart Trophy winner, Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.
Highlights of the NHL on TSN schedule include two all-Canadian tilts featuring Conference rivals Ottawa @ Montreal (November 11) and Edmonton @ Calgary (December 31), and a minimum of 10 games for each of the six Canadian teams. Additional highlights include 14 doubleheaders on TSN, seven Original Six match-ups and 10 games featuring the Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings.
Headlining the NHL on TSN’s increased Canadian team coverage during the regular season is the Toronto Maple Leafs with 17 appearances, followed by Montreal with 15, Ottawa with 13, and 10 appearances each for Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.
Just curious about last night's St. Louis - Detroit game being on TSN. Is that the only all-American matchup that wasn't relegated to TSN2 this year? TSN spent a lot of time marketing the fact that all of their main network telecasts would feature at least one Canadian team. Was last night's game put there just to remind us Rogers subscribers of what we're missing?
TSN has scheduled a few Versus and NBC matchups for the main network for the next couple months. They are all listed in the post above yours.
TSN basically has 2 NHL contracts now, one for Canadian teams and one for American teams (actually 3 because they have a Leafs one too). The Canadian one calls for 70 matchups featuring at least one Canadian team in each. These are all produced by TSN. Then they have another one where they basically have rights to all NBC and Versus games. These broadcasts can air on TSN or TSN2, most of them have aired on TSN2 so far because of conflicts with other NHL on TSN games or Monday Night Football. Now that MNF is done for the year, more of these will air on TSN. For these broadcasts TSN takes the direct feed from NBC or Versus, with their commentators/studio crew etc. No TSN production goes into these. The games scheduled for TSN were scheduled long before the season. Remember that TSN2 can only have a certain amount of live programming, it is only used when there is a conflict. TSN would never schedule live hockey there, and poker or something like that on the main feed.
It sure makes sense though, lots of subscribers to smaller outlets don't have access to TSN2HD, or TSN2 for that matter.
Point be made, hockey would have a much better following in the States if the broadcasters showed as many games as those in Canada. As it stands right now, we basically get all the national US broadcasts as a bonus (on TSN2 or NBC) up here. Plus the much larger packages for CBC and TSN that they produce. Certainly spoiled up here. Imagine if we added two or more teams to Canada, what kind of schedules we'd get.
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