Hockey Night in Canada: From Radio Ritual to Saturday-Night Institution

Hockey Night in Canada did not begin as a television show. Its roots are in radio, when live hockey was still a technical experiment and a broadcaster’s voice had to supply almost everything a listener could not see.

Before Hockey Night in Canada had a name

Toronto radio stations were experimenting with hockey play-by-play by 1923, and Foster Hewitt soon became the voice most closely associated with the format. In 1931, the General Motors Hockey Broadcast began carrying Saturday-night Toronto Maple Leafs games over a wider radio network. The broadcasts later moved through the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission and, after 1936, the CBC network.

The familiar Hockey Night in Canada identity grew out of that radio tradition. By the time television arrived, Saturday-night hockey already had an established audience and a recognizable rhythm.

Television arrives in 1952

Canada’s first televised NHL game aired from Montreal on October 11, 1952, with René Lecavalier calling the French-language broadcast of the Canadiens and Detroit Red Wings. The first English-language Toronto telecast followed on November 1, when Foster Hewitt called the Maple Leafs against the Boston Bruins.

Those early broadcasts did not necessarily begin with the opening faceoff. Games were often joined in progress because club owners worried that television could reduce arena attendance. The production was also inventing many of its conventions in real time: camera placement, replays, intermission segments and the balance between radio-style description and pictures that could finally speak for themselves.

From experiment to Saturday-night habit

As Canadian television expanded, Hockey Night in Canada became easier to see across the country. The broadcast changed along with the medium—colour television, more cameras, replay technology, studio analysis and regional games all altered the experience—but the Saturday-night slot remained the constant.

That consistency is a large part of the brand’s staying power. Generations encountered hockey through different announcers, different teams and different production styles, but the idea of a nationally shared Saturday-night hockey broadcast survived each technical change.

The rights change; the name survives

In 2013, Rogers acquired the national Canadian NHL media rights beginning with the 2014–15 season. Hockey Night in Canada continued under that new rights structure, including a long sublicensing arrangement that kept Saturday-night NHL games on CBC through the end of the 2025–26 season.

That CBC chapter has now closed. In June 2026, Sportsnet and CBC announced that CBC would no longer carry NHL broadcasts after the 2025–26 season. Rogers’ new national NHL agreement begins with the 2026–27 season and runs through 2037–38, with Rogers retaining the Canadian national rights and sublicensing some packages to other services.

A Canadian media institution, not a frozen moment

It is tempting to treat Hockey Night in Canada as one nostalgic era—black-and-white television, one theme song, one studio desk—but its history is really a series of reinventions. Radio became television. Local telecasts became national ones. Rights moved. Platforms changed. The Saturday-night identity kept adapting.

That is also why the old logos and broadcast-era designs still resonate. They are shorthand for particular versions of Saturday night: a family television, an arena broadcast, a familiar opening sequence, or the sense that much of the country was watching hockey at the same time.

Our officially licensed Hockey Night in Canada collection is built around that visual history, with apparel, hats, drinkware and gifts drawn from the broadcast’s familiar identities.

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Sources & further reading:
Canadian Communications Foundation — Hockey Night in Canada in Radio
Canadian Communications Foundation — The Television Years
Sportsnet/CBC joint statement, June 2026
NHL — Rogers national media rights agreement through 2037–38