The Hockey Night in Canada Era on CBC is over, as the company has ended its partnership with Rogers Sportsnet.
For the first time in franchise history, the Calgary Flames will not have a Saturday night game on CBC. According to a joint press release between the publicly funded CBC network and the Rogers-backed Sportsnet, the two companies parted ways, ending a Canadian tradition more than half a century old.
CBC began airing its iconic Hockey Night in Canada program in 1952, but lost its broadcasting rights after 2013-14, when Rogers became Canada's top provider for NHL games. However, they had a partnership that ran for the past 12 seasons, which saw games on CBC and CityTV, while all out-of-market games were available on the Sportsnet+ app.
On Apr. 2, 2025, Rogers announced a new 12-year deal with the NHL, granting it exclusive rights to NHL games across TV, digital, and streaming. In addition, they have the rights to all NHL events and the Stanley Cup Final. Plus, Rogers has the rights to all out-of-market games and becomes the exclusive sponsor for any NHL events held in Canada.
Unsurprisingly, when browsing social media for reactions to this breaking news, many fans are upset that Rogers has "destroyed" a piece of Canadian history to make a buck. Before streaming took over the way most people consume media, Hockey Night in Canada was free to air coast to coast. Now, fans who want to follow their teams, whether north or south of the border, will need to pay a subscription fee to watch games. However, it's just on par with where things are in sports media.
If Canadians want to watch the Toronto Blue Jays or Toronto Raptors, they need to subscribe to Sportsnet through their cable provider or sign up on the app to stream games. In America, baseball fans need to sign up for a sports package or subscribe to the MLB Network to watch their favorite teams. Even fans of the NBA, which airs many national games on ABC and ESPN, need a subscription to follow their favorite teams. Moreover, wrestling fans in Canada now need a Netflix subscription to watch Monday Night Raw.
Overall, advancements in technology, including phones, have pushed us to subscription-based platforms where everything in the world is available on big or small screens for a price. Today's announcement may have marked the end of an era for Hockey Night in Canada on free TV, but the writing has been on the wall for quite some time, and now the inevitable has finally come to pass.