By: Alex Eells
The NHL returned Tuesday, Sept. 29, with a five-game slate, including a triple-header on ESPN in the United States and a doubleheader on Sportsnet in Canada.
This season brings several changes, including the NHL expanding its regular season from 82 to 84 games. This is the first time the league has done so since 1993-94.
The additional games are divisional match ups, giving each team four games against every division opponent, two at home and two away. Teams will continue to play their eight other conference opponents three times each, with the home-and-road split rotating. They will still face each of their 16 out-of-conference opponents twice, once at home and once on the road.
The 82-game schedule had been a staple of the NHL for decades. With the league now at 32 teams, this expansion creates a more balanced divisional format.
However, across the border in Canada, an even bigger change has arrived.
For generations, Canadians gathered around their televisions on Saturdays to watch “Hockey Night in Canada” on CBC. After decades of broadcasting NHL games, the CBC will no longer carry the NHL this season.
While Sportsnet’s relationship with CBC on “Hockey Night in Canada” has now ended, the CBC is giving “Hockey Night in Canada” a new direction: women’s professional hockey.
The CBC announced plans to air eight Saturday night PWHL games beginning Dec. 5. The first game will feature the Montreal Victoire against the expansion PWHL Hamilton.
The shift comes as the Professional Women’s Hockey League continues to expand. The 2026-27 season will be the PWHL’s third, and the league has grown to 12 teams. For the first time, it will also have a season-long national television partnership in the United States.
Scripps Sports first aired last year’s Walter Cup Final, the PWHL’s counterpart to the NHL Stanley Cup Final. Scripps Sports is a subbranch of The E.W. Scripps Company, which took control of ION Media in 2021. ION is estimated to reach more than 128 million U.S. households.
Combined with CBC’s reach of roughly eight out of every 10 Canadian households, the PWHL’s Walter Cup Final will have significant potential distribution across the United States and Canada, giving it a larger household reach than the NHL’s Stanley Cup Final across the two countries.
That does not mean the PWHL will receive more viewers, but there is an opportunity for the league to reach a larger audience.
The comparison also highlights the differences in the NHL’s current media deals. In the United States, the Stanley Cup Final will air on TNT this year, with TNT Sports and ABC alternating coverage annually. Meanwhile in Canada, the Stanley Cup Final will no longer air on free television for the first time ever.
The PWHL will also see a weekly Saturday game airing on ION throughout the regular season, which drops the puck Saturday, Dec. 5. The NHL season may have opened with an expanded schedule, but the biggest change in hockey television could be taking place off the ice. As the NHL moves further into a fragmented national media landscape, the PWHL is gaining access to some of the same Saturday-night television real estate that helped make hockey a Canadian institution.
