CBC hopes to revive weekly Canadiens broadcast on Hockey Night in Canada
MONTREAL - The CBC hopes to give the Montreal Canadiens more ice time on Hockey Night in Canada next year, as the team heads into its 100th anniversary season.
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I’m too young to remember Danny Gallivan’s classic broadcasts and the dynasties of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s (thank you ESPN Classic Canada and NHL Network), but this is a move that should never have had to happen. The Canadiens are one of the bedrock franchises of the NHL and Hockey Night in Canada, and I can’t even think why they’d have ever pulled the weekly Habs broadcast. Even worse, the CBC’s French subsidiary, SRC, stopped carrying Saturday night games on Le Soiree du Hockey/Le Hockey du Samedi Soir a couple of years ago, now that RDS has full rights, so I can’t even watch the games in French (with the superior broadcast crew) without splurging for the French package on Bell ExpressVu.
The cynic in me thinks that this is partially motivated by RDS getting better ratings than CBC for Habs playoff games — even in Anglo households — but a large part of it is probably the fact that the new head of CBC-TV Sports, Scott Moore, is a native Montrealer who remembers the Gallivan/Irvin broadcasts of yesteryear.