On Sunday, June 14th, the Stanley Cup was awarded to close the 2025–2026 NHL season. Less than 48 hours later, Rogers dropped a bomb: that was the last time anyone would ever get to see NHL hockey on Canada’s public broadcaster, the CBC.
For the past twelve years, CBC has been rebroadcasting Rogers Sportsnet’s Saturday night games under their Hockey Night in Canada banner. This historic show, which has run for 90 years on radio and television, is dead.
The question is why.
The 2013 deal
In the summer of 2013, the NHL went shopping for a new deal for its Canadian broadcasting rights. The taxpayer-funded CBC rightly couldn’t throw too much money into their offer, which was reportedly $1.5 billion for a contract of around 10 years. This fell well short of Rogers’ $5.2 billion for 12 years.
However, CBC voiced to the NHL that HNIC is an institution which must be protected, but it fell on deaf ears.
There was no question whose bid the NHL found more appealing.
The fallout from that lost bid was that CBC lost their cash cow and roughly a third to a half of the network’s ad revenue. Just another nail in the coffin of a network whose utility keeps shrinking.
A menace to Canadian society
To give the devil his due, they didn’t have to share with CBC. And now they won’t.
With the NHL rights for the next dozen years costing more than double the previous dozen–$11.2 billion now vs the original $5.2–Rogers seems to have concluded that they can no longer afford any charity.
It’s bad public relations, but goodwill was never much of a priority for Rogers.
Part of a telecom oligarchy that charges Canadians the highest prices in the world, they already have nothing but haters. They consistently suffer horrendous results in customer satisfaction surveys.
A national sport now behind a paywall
As a business move, it seems the calculation to end free hockey will force more citizens to open up their wallets and pay for it.
But does this math work?
Most hockey fans already pay for Sportsnet in order to watch games throughout the week. It’s a much more casual fan who is content with Saturdays only. Of those CBC-exclusive viewers, some go without high-speed internet or cable due to financial constraints or their remote location. Then some will pirate the broadcasts or simply opt out to spite the giant corporation.
Add it all up, and the number of new subscribers Sportsnet can expect is a small sliver. They have their hooks so deep into the entire nation of hockey fans that there is no room to grow.
We never got to say goodbye
And so HNIC ends with no advance notice. No poetic final words from Ron MacLean. No nicely edited highlight pack. No opportunity to express any grief.
Out not with a bang but with a whimper.
That whimper? It was highlighted in the 82-word statement announcing the breakup:
[CBC] moves forward with a new sports programming strategy following the unprecedented success of the Milano/Cortina Olympic Games
Some consolation prize. Yes, the Olympics. That’s great for two weeks of programming every two years.
Hockey Night is Canada
With streamers taking away television watching and podcasts/Spotify taking away radio listening, CBC’s steady decline in relevance just took its steepest dive yet. With CBC’s mandate to showcase “Canadian identity”, hockey is not optional. It’s on our money. It’s Canada 101.
Maybe they can make some money licensing the HNIC trademark and logos. Let’s hope they don’t let it lapse like they did The Hockey Theme in 2008.
Rogers, meanwhile, is solidifying a hockey monopoly beyond broadcasting rights. They own 75% of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd, and expect to buy the 25% sometime this year. This means ownership of the Toronto Maple Leafs and their rink, Scotiabank Arena (among other major sports assets).
The NHL, meanwhile, continues to grow its revenue and seems less Canadian every year.
