Before the 1992–93 NHL season

After being dropped by NBC after the 1974–75 season,^[2][3][4] the NHL had no national television contract in the United States.^[5][6][7] In response to this, the league put together a network of independent stations covering approximately 55% of the country.^[8][9][10]

Games typically aired on Monday nights^[11] (beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern Time) or Saturday afternoons. The package was offered to local stations without a rights fee.^[12] Profits would instead be derived from the advertising, which was about evenly split between the network and the local station. The Monday night games were often billed as "The NHL Game of the Week."^[13]

Initially, the Monday night package was marketed to ABC affiliates; the idea being that ABC carried NFL football games on Monday nights in the fall and (starting in May 1976) Major League Baseball games on Monday nights in the spring and summer, stations would want the hockey telecasts to create a year-round Monday night sports block; however, very few ABC stations chose to pick up the package.

In 1979, ABC was contracted to televise Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.^[14][15] Since the Finals ended in five games, the contract was void.^[16] Had there been a seventh game, then Al Michaels would have called play-by-play alongside Bobby Clarke (color commentator). Jim McKay would host the seventh game in the studio and Frank Gifford (reporter) would have been in the winning team's dressing room to interview players and coaches as well as hand the phone to the winning team's coach that would have allowed him to talk to both President Jimmy Carter and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau). This would give Michaels the honor of being the first to provide the play-by-play in four of the five major professional sports, having called the Super Bowl, the World Series, and NBA Finals. The game would have started at 4 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on a Saturday, replacing Wide World of Sports and local news shows that typically followed it on ABC stations in the Eastern and Central time zones.

It was also around this time that ABC offered the NHL a limited deal (splitting the network and showing the NHL in the Northeast and Midwest and NASCAR in the South on Sunday afternoons) that NHL president John Ziegler Jr.^[17] quickly rejected.

Time-buy deal with ESPN (1993–1994)

In the 1992–93 season, ABC televised five weekly playoff telecasts^[27] (the first three weeks were regional coverage of various games and two national games)^[28][29] on Sunday afternoons starting on April 18 and ending on May 16.^[30][31][32] This marked the first time that playoff National Hockey League games were broadcast on American network television^[33][34] since 1975 (when NBC was the NHL's American broadcast television partner).^[35]

In the 1993–94 season, ABC televised six^[36] weekly regional telecasts^[28][29] on the last three Sunday afternoons beginning on March 27, 1994, marking the first time that regular season National Hockey League games were broadcast on American network television^[34] since NBC did it in 1974–75.^[37] ABC then televised three weeks worth of playoff games on first three Sundays^[38][39] – the final game was Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals between the Boston Bruins and the New Jersey Devils, a game that was aired nationally. The network did not televise the Stanley Cup Finals, which instead, were televised nationally by ESPN and by Prime Ticket in Los Angeles (1993) and MSG Network in New York (1994). Games televised on ABC were not subject to blackout.

These broadcasts (just as was the case with the 2000–2004 package) were essentially, time-buys^[40] by ESPN.^[41][42] In other words, ABC would sell three-hour blocks of airtime to ESPN,^[43] who in return, would produce and distribute the telecasts.^[34] Overall, ABC averaged a 1.7 rating for those two seasons.^[44][45][46]

When the NHL television contract went up for negotiation in early 1994, Fox (which was in the process of launching its sports division after acquiring the rights to the National Football Conference of the NFL) and CBS (which was hoping to land a major sports contract to replace the NFL rights that they lost to Fox and Major League Baseball rights that they lost to ABC and NBC) competed heavily for the package. On September 9, 1994, the National Hockey League reached a five-year, US$155 million contract with Fox^[47] for the broadcast television rights to the league's games, beginning with the 1994–95 season.^[48]

Announcers

NHL returns to ABC (2000–2004)

In August 1998, ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 signed a five-year television deal with the NHL, worth a total of approximately US$600 million^{[115][116][117][118][119][120][121]} (or $120 million per year), beginning with the league's 1999–2000 season. The $120 million per year that ABC and ESPN paid for rights dwarfed the $5.5 million that the NHL received from American national broadcasts in the 1991–92 season.^[122] ABC's terms of this deal included: rights to the NHL All-Star Game, 4 to 5 weeks of regular season action,^[123] with three games a week, weekend Stanley Cup Playoff games, and Games 3 to 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

As previously noted, much like ABC's initial contract with the NHL in the 1992–93 and 1993–94 seasons, ESPN essentially purchased time on ABC to air selected NHL games on the broadcast network. This was noted in copyright tags after the telecasts (i.e., "The preceding program has been paid for by ESPN, Inc."). ESPN later signed a similar television rights contract with the National Basketball Association in 2002, allowing it to produce and broadcast NBA games on ABC under a similar time buy arrangement on the broadcast network.^[124]

In May 2004, NBC and ESPN reached an agreement to broadcast NHL games beginning in the 2004–05 season, which would end up being canceled as a result of the 2004–05 NHL lockout; ESPN later withdrew^[125] from the deal in favor of OLN,^[126] which wound up being rebranded as NBCSN in 2012. In the interval between the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals and the start of the 2005–06 season, several ABC affiliates, including WDTN in Dayton, Ohio (a secondary market for the Columbus Blue Jackets) and WAND in Springfield, Illinois (which is served by the Chicago Blackhawks and the St. Louis Blues), switched to NBC (in WDTN's case, they returned to the network after 24 years away).

Regular season

As previously mentioned, ABC televised four to five weeks' worth of regional games on Saturday afternoons,^[127] typically beginning in January or March for the first two seasons.

Announcers

1999–2004 Regular-season Schedules

Second return to ABC (2021–present)

On March 10, 2021, ESPN announced a new, seven-year broadcast deal with the NHL, which included games on ESPN, ABC, and ESPN+ beginning in the 2021–22 season.^{[246][247][248][249][250][251][252][253]} At least 25 regular-season games will be scheduled to air on ESPN or ABC, along with half of the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and one conference final each year. Not only does ESPN/ABC have the first choice of which conference final series to air, but also ABC will exclusively broadcast four Stanley Cup Finals^[254] over the life of the contract, with the option to simulcast each game on ESPN+, as well as produce alternate broadcasts to air on other ESPN platforms.

The 2022 Stanley Cup Finals marked the first to be broadcast in their entirety on over-the-air television since 1980, as the Finals had since either been partially or exclusively carried on cable.^{[255][256][257]} Due to the current arrangement of ABC's sports programming being produced and co-branded by ESPN, the broadcasts carry the NHL on ESPN production and branding.

ABC's first game back featured the New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins in the annual Thanksgiving Showdown on November 26, 2021.^[258] After ABC aired the 2022 NHL All-Star Game, the network aired a weekly game under the ABC Hockey Saturday branding, which began on February 26. The package primarily aired on Saturday afternoons, with one primetime game on March 19 to accommodate afternoon coverage of the 2022 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament. All games broadcast by ABC are simulcast on ESPN+.^[259]

ABC did not air a full 30-minute or hour-long pregame show before their games in 2021, instead opting for an abbreviated 15-minute pregame show presented by Verizon. However, ABC aired a full 30-minute pregame show on April 23, as a lead-out of their Bundesliga soccer coverage. They will air a 30-minute pregame show for games outside of the primetime slot. If time permits, ABC will also air a short postgame show until 6 or 11 p.m. ET respectfully, so most ABC affiliates on the East Coast can show their local news or ABC World News Tonight. For the Stanley Cup Finals, all broadcasts began at 8 p.m. ET, allowing for a short pre-game show before puck drop; this is in contrast to the NBA Finals, which had historically preferred a later, 9 p.m. ET window for games on weeknights, with ABC leading into the game with half-hour Jimmy Kimmel Live! specials followed by NBA Countdown (the 2023 Finals will move weeknight games ahead by 30 minutes to an 8:30 p.m. window).^[260][261]

In the 2022–23 season, ABC aired 15 games, including four double-headers, the NHL Stadium Series game,^[262][263] and a triple-header on April 8; the Thanksgiving Showdown moved to TNT, which also covered this season's Stanley Cup Finals.^[264]

For the 2023–24 season, ABC's coverage included 19 regular season games (the largest number of games on a broadcast network in NHL history), featuring four double-headers, both NHL Stadium Series games, and two triple-headers on February 17 and April 13. ABC will also air the 2024 Stanley Cup Finals. ABC Hockey Saturday for this season began on January 13, preceding Super Wild Card Saturday of the NFL playoffs, unlike past years when its slate began after the NHL All-Star Game.^[265][266]

Announcers

Schedules