Full 82-game TV broadcast schedule
Three years after the great NHL TV realignment, as Montreal Canadiens fans seem to have finally figured out what channels they can find their team’s games on, a wrench has been thrown into the mix: TSN picked up the team’s TV broadcast rights from Sportsnet.
But that doesn’t mean all Canadiens games are on TSN this season.
The NHL, like other major sports leagues, splits its games between national ones, whose TV broadcast rights are sold by the league, and regional ones, whose rights are sold by the team (and can only be broadcast in the team’s designated region). It’s the latter that TSN has bought from the Canadiens for the next five seasons, comprising 50 regular-season games and all preseason games. The 32 national games — those in Sportsnet’s national windows of Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday evenings — as well as all playoff games remain with Sportsnet.
For those inside the Canadiens’ region, which comprises all of Quebec and Atlantic Canada as well as a wedge of eastern Ontario, this means they’ll need to have the following channels in their TV package to ensure they get all Canadiens games: CBC, City, Sportsnet, Sportsnet One, Sportsnet 360 and TSN2.
Montreal’s regional games are on TSN2 because TSN5 is already used for Senators games and the Senators and Canadiens share the same region. This means that providers like Cogeco that only carry two TSN channels will still have Canadiens games (though anyone still on analog cable or with only one TSN channel probably won’t).
For Habs fans in most of Ontario and all of Western Canada, the situation hasn’t changed much. They will still have access to the nationally broadcast games (though about 10 fewer than previous years because Sportsnet can no longer upgrade some regional games to national status) on CBC, City and the Sportsnet channels and for the rest they need to buy either NHL Centre Ice on their TV package or Rogers NHL Live (formerly GameCentre Live) for online streaming.
Both will continue to offer a special French-only package of just the Canadiens and Senators games on RDS for $60 for the season. This is available only to those outside the Canadiens’ region.
Hockey Night in Canada games are all national and continue the way they have the past three years with one game on each network and the Toronto Maple Leafs almost always getting priority on CBC. Channel assignments are announced about a week in advance, available on the NHL and team websites, sportsnet.ca/schedule, electronic program guides and in the Montreal Gazette’s game preview stories.
Cord-cutters who got all their Canadiens games through the Sportsnet Now streaming service are out of luck for those 50 TSN games, unfortunately, because TSN does not yet offer a similar service.
With a new broadcaster comes a new broadcast team, but it will be led by a familiar voice. John Bartlett, who called Canadiens regional games on Sportsnet for three years, has jumped back to TSN and will keep the same job with a new boss. Before joining Sportsnet in 2014, Bartlett was the voice of the Habs on TSN Radio 690 and being back with TSN means he’ll be free to join TSN 690 as a guest again.
Analyst Jason York and reporter Kyle Bukauskas won’t be joining Bartlett, though. Instead, he’ll rely on TSN Montreal reporter John Lu and a rotating cast of analysts — Dave Poulin, Mike Johnson and Craig Button — and hosts Tessa Bonhomme and Glenn Schiiler.
For those who prefer to watch in French, nothing changes. Both RDS’s deal with the Canadiens and TVA Sports’s deal with Rogers and the NHL continue until 2026. TVA Sports has all Saturday evening games, 22 in total, plus all playoff games and RDS has the rest, including all pre-season games.
Nothing changes on radio, either. All games will be broadcast on TSN Radio 690 in English and 98.5 FM in French.
By popular demand, we’re publishing another full-season schedule in print and online based on information we have now. (Channel assignments might change if there are schedule conflicts.) For a printable version for both in-region and out-of-region fans, go to hockeyinsideout.com.