The National Hockey League season is less than two months old, and much of the focus in Canada has been on how expensive it is to attend games, and how costly and cumbersome it has become to watch them on television.
Attendance has fallen in several markets, including Edmonton, where Connor McDavid has an astonishing 49 points in 20 games and is on pace to challenge Wayne Gretzky’s single-season scoring record of 215 points.
This week, The Globe and Mail reported that three TV providers had filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission asking Rogers Sportsnet to reverse its decision to put more than 50 Monday night N.H.L. games behind a paywall on its streaming service for an extra $13 a month.
Further increasing the cost and complexity of watching hockey, Wednesday night games are on Prime Video. TSN broadcasts some regional games with blackouts, and a subscription to NHL Centre Ice is needed to watch out-of-market games.
Until this season, the N.H.L. could be found for free.
In June, the CBC and Rogers Sportsnet announced that the national broadcaster would no longer air N.H.L. games on Saturday nights, a first in 75 years, ending the cultural institution “Hockey Night in Canada.” Last month, the CBC announced it would begin airing Professional Women’s Hockey League games when its season begins in December.
When the news broke, we asked Canada Letter readers to send us their thoughts and memories of “Hockey Night.” The response was overwhelming, and we’d like to share some today. (Responses have been edited for length and clarity.)
“For my childhood in the ’60s and ’70s, ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ wasn’t a TV show. It was Saturday night, the once a week chance to see an N.H.L. game on TV. One game. It might as well have been church. For my father and I, it was our greatest bonding experience. We could talk about the game together, watch the game together, anticipate the game — together. And hope for that ultimate fan prize: a bench-clearing brawl.” — Allen Gibson
“I grew up playing hockey in central New York state. When cable TV came to the area, the biggest selling point was that our cable network would carry a station from Kingston, Ontario. The only thing that I do remember clearly is that every Saturday night we watched ‘Hockey Night in Canada.’ It was like winning the lottery every week.” — Brian Goldblatt
“I was born the day of the first ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ broadcast on Nov. 1, 1952. One of my first memories as a young boy is sitting with dad in the basement on Saturday night breathlessly waiting for Foster Hewitt’s voice and wondering what the score might be (the early broadcasts started mid-game). Hockey has been in my blood since then, and I am both blessed (1967!) and cursed (59 years!) by my support of the Maple Leafs. The demise of this CBC broadcast is the direct result of the fragmentation of sports broadcasting. I fear that this continuing trend may have the longer term effect of alienating fans. It has for me with hockey, after a lifetime of living with this beautiful game.” — John Butler
“This is shattering. I have just started to follow hockey, and watching these broadcasts has made me feel part of the hockey community more than anything else. So sick of the ESPN effect on sports — slick programming that makes every sporting event seem like every other sporting event. Canadians, and true hockey fans everywhere, should be outraged by this loss, and clamor to bring it back. Hockey’s roots in the Great North should be preserved.” — Doyla Rosati
“My best memory of ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ relates to the old theme song, by the late Dolores Claman. There was a time, not that long ago, when you could easily find other Canadians in an overseas airport just by whistling the first few notes of the theme. As if on cue, another Canadian would respond with the next notes. It was always a magical moment when traveling.” — Michael Olsen
“It is so depressing that corporate greed can wipe out one of the most iconic cultural traditions in Canada. Even though I’m not the biggest hockey fan, my family was. And every Saturday night growing up at home I’d hear the familiar opening tune of ‘Hockey Night in Canada.’ It is one of my most heartwarming memories of watching my family around the TV cheering on the Leafs. To this day, that music comes on and it reminds me I’m part of that glorious Canadian tradition too. Especially at this time when celebrating Canadian pride is at its strongest in my lifetime.” — Alida Stevenson
“In the late 1980s we had a satellite dish (one of those big ones) while living in Colorado. We ended up watching a lot of CBC programming because it was free, including ‘Hockey Night in Canada.’ I knew almost nothing about hockey. But I started watching from time to time, especially after the Quebec Nordiques came to Denver and became the Colorado Avalanche. ‘Hockey Night’ taught me about hockey enough that I could enjoy it.” — Karen Wydeven
“There are a lot of varied opinions on CBC’s role in Canada, however in this matter, I think many agree that it will be a very large loss, but also a possible turning point for our public broadcaster. I spent a lot of nights watching CBC’s ‘H.N.I.C.’ or listening to CBC on the radio for the games. Hopefully CBC will take the opportunity to become the national broadcaster for the P.W.H.L., something I wish had been when I was a young girl. How incredible it would have been for 5-year-old me to have watched women play the sport I love so much. Something I now wish for younger female athletes.” — Tammy Jakeman
“As an avid fan during the Canadiens’ amazing run in the ’70s I wanted to watch ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ on Saturdays. My dad didn’t think it was appropriate for a teenage girl to be watching hockey. He didn’t know I listened to almost every game on the radio during the week. So I made a deal with him, I would crochet in front of the television if I could watch with him.” — Cremilda Dias
“I grew up in Montreal in a family that came from a small Greek island: Naxos. My grandfather came over in 1907 but we had quite a few relatives in the city who were recent immigrants and still struggled to speak either English or French. On Saturday nights we often went to family functions in the homes of relatives who hadn’t been in Canada that long and were still emotionally tied to the village. By 8 o’clock, the men would gather around the black and white TV to watch whatever game was on. None of them ever missed it, especially when they were together and the Montreal Canadiens were playing. They argued passionately about every play, every lost opportunity, the strength and weaknesses of each player, entirely in Greek. It seemed that as soon as they stepped off the boat and started their lives in Montreal they discovered ‘Hockey Night in Canada.’ It became their doorway to their new country.” — Emmanuel Hadzipetros
“Born in 1960, I watched ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ growing up. I grew tired of the violence and watch it only occasionally during the season and playoffs. I am thrilled that the dropping of it will help promote more coverage of the women’s game.” — Susan Funnell
“As a farm kid growing up in small town southern Alberta in the early 1960s we had one station, CBC, and ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ was a Saturday night ritual. If the atmospheric gods were smiling on us, we were graced with a static filled black and white image, but at least the audio was good. To this day hearing the theme magically transports me back to small town Alberta surrounded by my brothers and sister and cold dark winter nights. It’s the end of an era.” — Laurence Torsher
“It represents a slice of Canadian culture that is only a slice, as the success of the P.W.H.L. shows. The negative effects of the male professional hockey machine are well-documented. I’m proud of how the CBC is a platform for less-popular sports, like women’s hockey and soccer, volleyball and softball, and the non-hockey Olympics. These athletes compete for a pittance and often have to support themselves on the side. I think it helps keep the ‘sport’ of it in perspective.” — Tim Dyck
“In 1969, overpacked car driven by my new French Canadian husband, we went from my family home in Connecticut to Montreal. I’d had Latin and Spanish in school and my husband had very little English. We met one year before in the German pub on the Expo Islands. Twelve months later, after long distance calls, torturous letters written and read with bilingual dictionaries, and two weeks of intensive French classes, we married. We lived in a three-story apartment in the middle unit with the French sounds of the neighbors’ radios seeping into the rooms. However, most of my French that year came from ‘Hockey Night in Canada.’ We watched it at the grandparents’ where the large extended family gathered on Saturday evenings to cheer encouragement. I also learned a couple of cuss words when things did not go well.” — Carol Ann St-Jean
“I lived in Montreal during the war Vietnam War, and later Vancouver. What surprised me at the time, being a Yank with no interest in sports in general of any kind, how totally captivating ‘H.N.I.C.’ was for Canadians. Everyone, certainly among the Canadians I worked with and socialized with, was home watching hockey on telly that night, and talking about the games the following day. I also recall that crime stats dropped to almost zero on ‘H.N.I.C.’ days. The entire cultural spectacle was lost on me at the time, yet another indication of how little us Yanks knew and understood Canada at the time.” — Dick Matthews
“When I was growing up in Northern Ontario, ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ was two nights a week, both Wednesday and Saturday. On school nights I was allowed to watch one period, on Saturdays two. But each bedtime was the same. I would kneel by my bed and pray that the Leafs won, so my dad wouldn’t be sad.” — Rhonda Wright
“As a now-elderly American I first heard ‘H.N.I.C.’ on static filled radio under the covers when I should have been sleeping. As an adult in the Detroit suburbs, it came to me from CBC Windsor. For me it was and remained the gold standard in sports broadcasting. Whatever will replace it on Saturday night will fail to match the memories. We live in an age of change, and must adapt. But some changes we can regret, and this will sting, at least for awhile.” — Joe Sher
Shawna Richer is the Canada editor at The Times. She lives in Toronto and has been editing and writing about sports for more than 25 years.
‘Come From Away’ Producer Turns a Toronto Hospital Into a Stage
Caleb Linton, 7, had a liver transplant at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children when he was 6 months old. The doctors, he says, saved his life. That’s why he’s here.
“Here” is a room in the old wing of SickKids, where Linton is performing this month in an adventurous theatrical production that unfolds across eight floors and more than a dozen rooms of the working hospital. The SickKids Foundation is staging the show, which features 16 professional actors and a rotating cast of former patients, to kick off a fund-raising initiative with a goal of 2.5 billion Canadian dollars.
Michael Rubinoff, who produced the hit musical “Come From Away” on Broadway and the West End, is behind the performance. He says this show is “the most profound experience I’ve had as a producer.” It is also among the most challenging.
Six separate audience groups move through different parts of the hospital while the story unfolds. Monica Dottor, playing a doctor, meets one group in a hallway, while PJ Prudat, dressed as a therapeutic clown, wheelies down the same hallway with another.
The choreography is orchestrated from a dark office tucked away on the sixth floor, where the stage manager Kate Sandeson watches video feeds from each room. She is one of six stage mangers on the production, more than the largest professional productions in Toronto, Rubinoff said.
A project this complex would normally take two years to put together. The creative team did it in six months. The Toronto director Mitchell Cushman, a co-creator, likened it to “building the airplane while you’re flying.”
The SickKids Foundation has raised about 1 billion Canadian dollars so far in its 10-year campaign, which began in 2023. “It’s a huge number,” said Jennifer Bernard, president and C.E.O. of the foundation, and it required an equally ambitious launch. She has seen the show 10 times.
Few members of the public, however, will get the chance. Most of the 21 performances, spread over three weeks for audiences of 100, are for donors and hospital staff members. Only one, on Nov. 20, is open to the public, and a lottery for one of 42 available pairs of tickets has drawn more than a thousand entries.
Mark Colley is a reporter for The Times based in Vancouver. He covers breaking news and Canada.
Trans Canada
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Trekking through the wilds of the Yukon territory, the American novelist Maggie Shipstead reconsiders her relationship to aging and risk.
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Four grizzly bears were responsible for the attack that killed two women in British Columbia this month, wildlife authorities said this week. The sow and her three cubs were captured over the weekend, and forensic testing, including the examination of animal DNA, conclusively linked them to the attack.
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Giant roadside attractions — like Tyra the Tyrannosaurus of Drumheller, Alberta — have helped put hundreds of communities on the map. What happens when their novelty fades and costs pile up?
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Stormy weather that battered the Pacific Northwest and southwestern Canada spread during the week, bringing the region’s first major dose of winter rains.
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