Hockey Night in Canada

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Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) is a popular television broadcast of National Hockey League games in Canada produced by the CBC. It is consistently the highest-rated Canadian-produced television program on Canadian television. The highest-rated segment of HNIC is Coach's Corner, an intermission show featuring Don Cherry and Ron MacLean.

Hockey Night in Canada airs regular season NHL games on the English network of the CBC every Saturday evening. Consecutive games are broadcast live, beginning with the early game at 7 p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT); the second contest begins after 10 p.m. ET (7 p.m. PT) Radio-Canada (simulcasting with RDS in later years) aired La Soirée du hockey, featuring Montreal Canadiens games on Saturday evenings in French. In the past the SRC had aired Quebec Nordiques and Ottawa Senators games occasionally during the regular season if the Canadiens were not playing that night.

Contents

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Format

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Regular season

CBC's Hockey Night in Canada coverage typically begins 30 minutes prior to the opening faceoff of game one, with a pregame called Saturday Night. Ron MacLean hosts the program, and Elliotte Friedman, hosts a segment called The Headliner, a weekly feature where Friedman examines a range of issues, mainly dealing with office issues.

Game one of the Saturday night double-header typically originates in Eastern Canada, beginning at 7 p.m. ET (4 p.m. PT). This game almost always features the Toronto Maple Leafs, but could have other Canadian teams, usually Ottawa or Montreal for regional coverage. Ron MacLean hosts the entire evening broadcast, usually from the arena of the featured game. Play-by-play is provided by veteran Bob Cole, who started broadcasting NHL games on radio in 1969. Game analyst Harry Neale joined Cole in the broadcast booth in 1985. Image:Hockeynew.JPG At the end of the first period, Ron MacLean hosts Coach's Corner, featuring the show's star and former NHL Coach of the Year, Don Cherry. On Coach's Corner, Don Cherry, also known as "Grapes", examines the game so far, as well as give tips on the various points of hockey, with Ron MacLean being Cherry's foil. There are some times in which Cherry tends to be controversial; for example in 2003, Cherry stated that the majority of player wearing facial protection in the NHL are Quebecers and Europeans. Given Cherry's well-documented biases, leading to Coach's Corner being put on a 7-second delay for the rest of the season by the CBC, even thought most francophones in Quebec did not know he said it. There are also interviews with players in between periods with them brandishing a towel with the HNIC logo on it.

This segment, the highest-rated spot on Canadian television, is followed by a second feature that changes from season to season, currently being called "Up to the Minute". During the second intermission, MacLean hosts the "Satellite Hotstove", a feature that uses hockey journalists from across North America to debate and speculate on issues facing hockey. One regular on the "Hotstove" is John Davidson, a U.S.-based hockey commentator (no relation to the singer) who usually participates from an American city (mainly New York).

Following the first game and the "three stars" of the game, time pending, MacLean and Cherry return for scores and highlights of the other games (which could unofficially be called "Coach's Corner II"), plus interviews with players from the preceding and following game, and a preview of the next game.

Barring any overtime or shootout play, the second game goes to air around 10 p.m. ET (7 p.m. PT), from a western venue. Since hurry up faceoffs were introduced, it is extremely rare that a regular season game runs longer than 3 hours, so pretty much every double header game is seen in its entirety. Because of financial strains caused by the show's hiatus during the 2004/2005 NHL lockout, Chris Cuthbert, who some hockey fans saw as the heir apparent to Bob Cole, was fired and Bell Globemedia hired Cuthbert in 2005 to work at their TSN. CBC announced the new lead broadcaster for the second half of the double headers in 2005-2006 will be Jim Hughson, a Sportsnet veteran and Vancouver Canucks commentator.

The broadcast will also originate from a U.S. city playing host to a Canadian team. Only once (in 1994) has the CBC scheduled to broadcast a game featuring two American teams, but it has been forced to show a few more over the years due to labour issues.

Beginning with the 2000-01 season, and at the conclusion of its Saturday night games broadcast, the CBC launched After Hours, a program to recap all of the night's coverage with hosts Russell and Kelly Hrudey. The wrap-up usually includes a guest appearance by an NHL player or coach and is more interactive, with Scott Oake, who replaced Russell, taking questions from viewers across the country via a wireless BlackBerry handheld device.

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Playoffs

CBC also provides extensive Stanley Cup playoff coverage every spring with a focus on Canadian teams. Many of the playoff games, regardless of the day of the week, are aired giving the CBC an unusual program schedule from late March through early June. This means CBC generally ends its regularly scheduled broadcast season earlier than other Canadian and American broadcasters. All playoff games involving Canadian teams are aired by the CBC, though not always on a national basis.

During the first intermission of playoff broadcasts, the feature alternates between Don Cherry's Coach's Corner, and Kelly Hrudey's Behind the Mask. Hrudey, a former NHL goaltender, joined the CBC for the 1998-99 season. As a former player, Hrudey can provide unique perspectives on today's NHL and give the viewer an inside look at the game from another angle. Usually, Cherry will have features during either Toronto Maple Leaf games or whichever Canadian team is still in the playoffs (like Calgary in 2004 or Ottawa in 2003), with Hrudey having every other game.

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Hockey Day in Canada

Hockey Day in Canada is an annual special broadcast to celebrate the game in Canada that includes features all afternoon, leading up to a tripleheader of NHL action featuring the six Canadian teams (Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks). Lead commentators, Don Cherry and Ron MacLean broadcast from a remote area. The broadcast includes live broadcast segments from smaller communities right across the country and features panel discussions on issues facing "Canada's game" at both the minor and pro levels. The day is usually in mid-February, but was broadcast in early January in 2002 and 2006 due to the 2002 Winter Olympics and 2006 Winter Olympics, respectively.

Hockey Day in Canada has also featured special events, such as world-record all-night pick-up hockey games from Red Deer AB (in 2001) and Windsor NS (2002). Viewers got to see the games after the CBC ended regular programming for the night, sans commentary.

Hockey Day in Canada has fast become a tradition among Canadian hockey fans, taking on the role of an unofficial holiday. In some communities, such as the case with 2006's location, Stephenville, Newfoundland, it is said that Hockey Day is "bigger than Santa."

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Hockey Day in Canada broadcast locations

In January 2005, due to the NHL labour dispute, the CBC discontinued the broadcast and rival TSN aired a rival broadcast, "Hockey Lives Here: Canada's Game", based from the World Pond Hockey championships in Plaster Rock, New Brunswick. The 2006 return of Hockey Day in Canada was based out of Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador on January 7, 2006.

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Movie Night in Canada

During the 2004-2005 NHL lockout, the CBC replaced Hockey Night in Canada with a triple-feature of movies. (The "Saturday Night" pre-game was replaced with repeats of The Red Green Show.) However, as a reminder to viewers that Saturday night was supposed to be "Hockey Night", Ron MacLean hosted the movies from various hockey venues throughout Canada, under the title "Movie Night in Canada", where Ron would dispense some facts about the film and, of course, hockey, during the commercial breaks. This went on during what was supposed to be the NHL's 2004-2005 season, and ended when the season was "over", just in time for the settlement.

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HNIC in the USA

NHL Center Ice offers Hockey Night in Canada at the same time as the CBC broadcast, airing the entire program from the Saturday Night pre-game show through the HNIC After Hours post-game show. Additionally, U.S. cable television outlets near the international border (notably Detroit, Buffalo, and Seattle) typically carry a nearby CBC affiliate on their systems (though some cable systems in Michigan carry the distant CBMT from Montreal).

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Style

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Announcers

Hockey Night in Canada made its debut on CRBC radio in 1933 (renamed CBC in 1936), with television broadcasts beginning in 1952. After missing the cancelled 2004–05 season, it returned on October 8, 2005.

Image:HNIC announcers.JPG The legendary Foster Hewitt, who had developed a style that welcomed Canadians to the radio broadcast each week, had to prove his radio style could also work in the new medium of television. His move from radio to television was successful and Hewitt continued to work in television for many years. This style of play-by-play announcers in hockey broadcasting really hasn't changed between radio and TV, as broadcasters still describe the action as if viewers cannot see what is on the screen they're watching. He was followed (in no particular order) by Danny Gallivan, Dick Irvin, Jr., Bob Cole, and Hewitt's son, Bill Hewitt. Previous show hosts included Wes McKnight, Ward Cornell, Jack Dennett, Ted Darling and Dave Hodge. The show's current host is Ron MacLean.

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Theme song

The famous theme song, "The Hockey Theme," was written in 1968 by Dolores Claman and has been referred to as Canada's second national anthem. The theme was updated in 1988 when the show was retitled Molson Hockey Night in Canada on CBC. In 1998, the theme was again updated, when Labatt became the main sponsor, and the show was back to being called Hockey Night in Canada, even though the announcers always tacked on "brought to you by Labatt Blue" afterwards (La Soirée du hockey continued to use the Molson theme up until its discontinuation in 2004). Other theme updates occurred in 2000 and 2001, but a new theme similar to the Molson theme was brought back at the start of the 2004 playoffs, although it was only used during the opening (around this time, there was no title sponsor). In November 2004 Dolores Claman initiated legal action against CBC for breach of copyright. [1]

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Previous logos

First television intro (1952)

1970s early electronic animation intro

1980s 3D intro

Logo from the 1997-1998 season

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Criticism

Image:Tv hnic don cherry.jpg Criticism of Hockey Night in Canada has come from two directions. Critics of what the show chooses to program allege that the Eastern broadcast in particular favours teams from Ontario, especially the Toronto Maple Leafs. These critics note that Leafs games are often aired too early, usually to the detriment of the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens. The CBC has responded by saying that scheduling Leafs games early makes sense considering budget cutbacks and the massive national popularity of the Maple Leafs. The Toronto games are seen as making more money for the English-language network, as Montreal is mainly francophone and Canadiens-oriented, while the Senators, despite having a growing, albeit young fanbase, are situated in a smaller city from which the national newspapers and TV stations do not originate. In addition, viewers wishing to watch the 2nd game of the double header have sometimes been forced to view the 1st game's feed until its conclusion as CBC rarely splits its feed for Western viewers. This is rarely a concern anymore as regular season games almost never go past 7:08pm PT since the introduction of hurry up faceoffs. In the past, especially late in the season if the 2nd game had no playoff implications, the CBC would slowly wrapup the 1st game(s) including interviews and analysis, as well as multiple commercial breaks, before finally joining the 2nd game in progress, even in the Western Canadian team(s) home market.

In addition, with the CBC having exclusive broadcast rights to NHL games in Canada on Saturdays critics say that it abuses this power by refusing to air games regionally - showing the entire country the Leafs game and excluding the local teams game in their home market without allowing local or regional broadcasters such as Rogers Sportsnet the ability to show the local team's games.

The CBC has also taken criticism from Western based hockey fans for refusing to broadcast the 2nd game of the doubleheader (the "Western" game) in HDTV. As such, usually only games involving Toronto are shown in the higher resolution format.

Critics of what the CBC chooses to program around the show allege that live hockey action at the beginning of the second or third periods is too often truncated. They charge that this is due to two factors: the intermission show running too long, and the CBC's refusal to pull promos for other shows even when there isn't enough time to show both the promos and the start of the period.

Critics of the show's content often focuses around Don Cherry, who has made several controversial statements during his live on-air segments. He has been accused of being racist towards European-born players and French-Canadians, and is often seen as an advocate of the old-school rough style of hockey frowned upon both by some hockey fans, including NHL administrators, and many of their TV partners. For more criticisms of Cherry, please see Don Cherry (hockey)

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Programs with similar titles

The American television network NBC has recently announced that its new Sunday night NFL football coverage, beginning in 2006, would be called Football Night in America, which is basically a takeoff of the Hockey Night in Canada name. NBC had previously televised Major League Baseball games under the name Baseball Night in America.

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External links

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Further reading

Cole, Stephen. (2004). The Best of Hockey Night in Canada. Toronto: McArthur & Company Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 1552784088.

Gruneau, Richard, and David Whitson. (1994). Hockey Night in Canada: Sport, Identities and Cultural Politics. Toronto: Garamond Press. ISBN 0-920059-05-8.sv:Hockey Night in Canada

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