NEW YORK – With more live game coverage than ever before, NHL Network™ today unveiled its U.S. broadcast schedule for the 2008-09 regular season. It includes 75 regular-season games, all in HD.
Highlighting the schedule is the inclusion of CBC's award-winning Hockey Night In Canada, now available to U.S. fans through NHL Network for the first time. Every Saturday night, NHL Network will not only broadcast the live Hockey Night In Canada double-header, but also the CBC pre-game show Scotiabank Hockey Tonight and post-game show After Hours.
Regular-season coverage on NHL Network gets underway in the U.S. on Saturday, Oct. 4 when the
New York Rangers take on the
Tampa Bay Lightning in Prague, Czech Republic and the
Ottawa Senators and
Pittsburgh Penguins meet in Stockholm, Sweden, in the Bridgestone NHL Premiere 2008™.
Additional highlights for the 2008-09 NHL broadcast schedule include:
* Live NHL games every Saturday night throughout the season
* 26 double-headers and 1 triple-header
* 17 Wednesday-night games featuring TSN's broadcast of Wednesday Night Hockey
* 5 games featuring the Stanley Cup champion
Detroit Red Wings
* 7 games featuring the
Pittsburgh Penguins and
Sidney Crosby
* 2 games featuring the
Washington Capitals and last season's Hart Trophy winner Alex Ovechkin
* 5 original NHL Network game productions
"NHL Network is an important platform in super-serving our fans with the hockey content they demand, 24 hours a day," said John Shannon, NHL Executive Vice President of Broadcasting and Programming. "With top-quality production of marquee match-ups on a consistent schedule, in addition to new original programming, NHL Network is creating appointment television for hockey fans nationwide."
NHL Network is the first 24-hour network dedicated to the National Hockey League with unprecedented access to the most comprehensive hockey coverage both on and off the ice. In addition to live NHL games, NHL Network will broadcast live college hockey and the Memorial Cup. The network also airs post-game press conferences, special event programming on-location from NHL events such as NHL Winter Classic™, NHL All-Star weekend, NHL Entry Draft and the Stanley Cup™ Final and its signature daily live highlight show – NHL on the Fly – which airs nightly throughout the hockey season.
NHL Network is now accessible to more than 80 million homes through all of its carriage arrangements, including those with Cablevision, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, DIRECTV, DISH Network® and Time Warner Cable. NHL Network launched in the U.S in October of 2007 and in Canada in 2001. This is the second season NHL Network will broadcast live NHL games in the U.S.
:
. E* has none of those channels or packages. Comcast has better sports that E*. The turning point for me was MLB EI. And I also get blackouts when the SJ Sharks are on the NHL Network. I couldn't even watch the Sharks in the playoffs on Vrs's in HD on E*. My buddy had D* and was able to watch it no ploblem. The sad part is I've been a E* customer since 1996. Lame
