As the men’s hockey tournament kicked off at the 2026 Olympics, Slovakia and Finland were taking the ice and the game got underway.
Then, the game abruptly was taken off the air with no notice and moved to NBC’s streaming service, Peacock.
NBC’s broadcast of the Olympics this year has come under heavy scrutiny on social media due to their lack of coverage of events without American athletes, and that seems to have come into play once again.
For Lightning fans, the game interrupted was an important one as Erik Cernak was making his Olympic debut as an alternate captain for Slovakia.
Cernak has previously represented his country at the World Championship and World Junior Championship tournaments, but due to restrictions on NHL players following the 2014 Olympic Games, he had yet to play at the biggest stage of international sports.
Cernak is starting the tournament on the second defensive pairing alongside veteran defenseman Martin Gernat who currently plays for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl in the Russian Kontinental Hockey League.