From1965 through1975, in addition to the Saturday night game on CBC,Hockey Night in Canada also produced and broadcast a Wednesday night game onCTV, CBC's privately owned competitor; beginning in the1975–76 NHL season, these midweek games began to broadcast by local stations. In1970–71, theVancouver Canucks joined the NHL, meaning that there were now three possible venues for anHNIC telecast.
In the U.S., the league's deal withCBS to air Sunday afternoon regular-season games and playoff games expired at the end of the1971–72 season.NBC then aired those games in the same slot from1972–73 to1974–75. After failing to find a national network to replace NBC, the league launched theNHL Network, asyndication package that offered games to independent stations from1975–76 to1978–79. In1979–80, theUSA Network (known at the time UA-Columbia) then signed on to televise games, whileESPN made deals with a selected number of individual teams to air their games.
For six seasons, from1966–67[1][2][3][4] through1971–72,[5][6] CBS aired a game each week[7][8] between mid-January until early-mid May in each of those seasons, mainly on a Sunday afternoon,[9] including playoffs.[10] Each American based franchise was paid US$100,000 annually for the first two years of the initial contract and $150,000 for the third.[11] From 1968–69[12][13][14][15] through 1971–72, the intermission studio was called "CBS Control," just like with itsNFL coverage.
In1970,Pat Summerall and thenBoston Bruins' television announcerDon Earle did a short post-game segment from inside the team's dressing room at the end of CBS' coverage of the fourth (and what turned out to be the final game) of the 1970 Stanley Cup Finals.WSBK-TV, which was the Bruins' television flagship at the time, simulcast the CBS coverage and did a longer post-game locker-room segment after CBS' coverage ended. AfterBobby Orr scored the championship-winning goal after just 40 seconds, so the story went, Summerall turned to Bobby's father, Doug Orr (who was reportedly, too nervous to go back to his seat from the Bruins' dressing room for the start ofovertime) and yelled over the crowd in the stands above "Mr. Orr, your son has scored, and Boston has won the Stanley Cup!" Doug Orr is said to have told Summerall, "I know Boston scored, but we didn't see it! What makes you think my son scored?" Summerall supposedly replied, "Because they wouldn't be yelling this loudly ifEsposito had scored!"
The most commonly seen video clip of Bobby Orr's "flight" is the American version broadcast on CBS as called byDan Kelly. This archival clip can be considered a rarity, since about 98% of the time, any survivingkinescopes or videotapes of the actual telecasts of hockey games from this era usually emanate from CBC's coverage. According toDick Irvin, Jr.'s bookMy 26 Stanley Cups (Irvin was in the CBC booth withDanny Gallivan during the 1970 Stanley Cup Finals), he was always curious why even the CBC typically uses the CBS replay of the Bobby Orr goal (with Dan Kelly's commentary) instead of Gallivan's call. The explanation that Irvin received was that the CBC'smaster tape of the game (along with others) was thrown away in order to clear shelf space at the network.
The clip exists because WSBK-TV in Boston, then anindependent station, was the television flagship of theBoston Bruins. WSBK had a weekly program during the season showing highlights of the previous week's games. WSBK got permission from CBS to simulcast the game and to tape the network's telecast and use highlights from that it for the next week's show. WSBK decided to show the entire (however brief) overtime session in the final 1969–70 edition (aired on May 17, 1970) ofBruins Highlights, as well as inBoston Bruins: World Champions, an hour-long documentary featuring highlights of the team's 1969–70 season and Stanley Cup win. Coincidentally, WSBK is now owned byCBS, run as a sister station to WBZ-TV (formerly owned byWestinghouse Broadcasting as anNBC affiliate).
On January 31, 1971, CBS was scheduled to carry a game between theBoston Bruins andSt. Louis Blues, a rematch of the 1970 Finals. The game was to begin at 2 p.m.Eastern Time, butNASA announced that theApollo 14 lunar-landing mission would be launched that afternoon at 3:23 p.m. Eastern Time. CBS decided to air the first period of the game live, then switch to news coverage once the first period ended (at approximately 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time). At about 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time, after the launch coverage was due to end, CBS would show the second and third periods of the game ontape delay. But the launch was delayed for over a half-hour, and after the launch took place, CBS had no time to show the rest of the game on tape.
Sunday afternoon playoff games were shown by the network; the same pattern continued through the1971–72 season. CBS did manage to televise the1971 Stanley Cup Finals clincher on a Tuesday night and the1972 Stanley Cup Finals clincher[16] on a Thursday night. In 1971, CBS was not scheduled to broadcast Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, but showed theprime time contest (the first ever occurrence of an NHL game being nationally televised in prime time in the United States) between theMontreal Canadiens andChicago Black Hawks after fans reportedly swamped switchboards at network headquarters in New York City asking that the seventh game be televised. Ironically, the game was not telecast by CBS' Chicagoowned-and-operated stationWBBM-TV, nor on CBSaffiliates in most ofIllinois, and parts ofIndiana,Wisconsin andIowa, due to Blackhawks' ownerArthur M. Wirtz policy of not telecasting home games. While Dan Kelly once again handled all the play-by-play work, Jim Gordon replaced Bill Mazer[17] in1970–71. For the CBS' Stanley Cup Finals coverage during this period, a third voice was added to the booth (Phil Esposito in 1971 andHarry Howell in 1972).
One trivial note however, on January 23, 1972, Jim Gordon was not inBoston for theBuffalo-Boston game. Therefore,Dick Stockton filled-in and did the game with Dan Kelly. Stockton, although doing some work forThe NFL on CBS, was also at the time a sports anchor forWBZ-TV inBoston, which ironically was at the time anNBC affiliate (WBZ-TV switched from NBC to CBS on January 2, 1995, after its parent companyWestinghouse invested in and later purchased CBS, making WBZ an owned-and-operated station of the network in September 1995 which it has remained as since).
In1972,Hockey Night in Canada moved allplayoff coverage fromCBC toCTV to avoid conflict with the lengthyNABETstrike[18] against the CBC. Eventually,MacLaren Advertising, in conjunction withMolson Breweries andImperial Oil/Esso, who actually owned the rights toHockey Night in Canada (not CBC) decided to give the playoff telecast rights to CTV. Initially, it was on a game by game basis in the quarterfinals (Game 1 of theBoston-Toronto series was seen onCFTO Toronto in full while otherCTV affiliates, but not all joined the game in progress. Game 1 of theNew York Rangers-Montreal series was seen only onCFCF Montreal while Game 4 not televised due to alockout of technicians at theMontreal Forum), and then the full semifinals and Stanley Cup Finals. Because CTV did not have 100% penetration in Canada at this time, they asked CBC (who ultimately refused) to allow whatever one of theiraffiliates were the sole network in that market to show the playoffs. As a result, the 1972 Stanley Cup playoffs were not seen in some of the smaller Canadian markets unless said markets were close enough to theUnited States border to pick up the signal of aCBSaffiliate that carried Games, 1, 4, or 6 (Games 2, 3 and 5 were not nationally broadcast in the United States).
During the1972 Stanley Cup Finals between theBoston Bruins andNew York Rangers, CBS took a rather calculated risk in not televising the Game 5 match on May 9 (CBS aired regular programming, including the originalHawaii Five-O in that time period on that Tuesday night). This was despite the fact that Game 5 was a potential clincher with the Bruins up three games to one on the Rangers. CBS ultimately lucked out (since the Rangers won Game 5 3–2), and televised the clincher (Game 6) on Thursday night, May 11.
After CBS lost the American television rights toNBC following the1971–72 season (CBS was paying less than $2 million a year and NBC jumped to $5.3 million[19]), the network covered theinaugural season of theWorld Hockey Association.
HBO's first sports broadcast was of aNew York Rangers-Vancouver Canucks NHL game fromMadison Square Garden, transmitted to aService Electric cable system inWilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on November 8, 1972; the channel continued to air NHL hockey games through the mid-1970s. More specifically, was transmitted over channel 21—its original assigned channel on the Teleservice system—that evening to 325 Teleservice subscribers in Wilkes-Barre (a plaque commemorating this event is located at Public Square in downtown Wilkes-Barre).
From1972–73[5]–1974–75,[20] NBC not only televised the Stanley Cup Finals[21] (including a couple of games inprime time[22]), but also weekly regular season games on Sunday afternoons. The previous contract with CBS was paying the NHL less than $2 million a year and NBC jumped in with an offer of $5.3 million.[23] NBC also aired one regular season and a couple of playoff games in prime time during the first couple of seasons.Tim Ryan andTed Lindsay (withBrian McFarlane as the intermission host) served as the commentators for NBC's NHL coverage during this period.[24][25][26] Since most NHL teams still did not have players' names displayed on the backs of jerseys, NBC persuaded NHL commissionerClarence Campbell to make teams put on players' names on NBC telecasts beginning with the1973–74 season to help viewers identify them.
Peter Puck was introduced during NBC's NHL coverage in the 1970s.[27][28] The animated character, whose cartoon adventures (produced byHanna-Barbera) appeared on bothNBC's Hockey Game of the Week andCBC'sHockey Night in Canada, explained hockey rules to the home viewing audience.
Besides Peter Puck, the 1970s version ofThe NHL on NBC had a between-periods feature titledShowdown. The concept ofShowdown involved 20 of the NHL's greatest players (16 shooters and four goaltenders) going head-to-head in a tapedpenalty shot competition withBrian McFarlane hosting. After the NHL left NBC in 1975,[6][29][30]Showdown continued to be seen onHockey Night in Canada and local television broadcasts of U.S.-based NHL teams.
When Game 7 of the1975 playoff series betweenPittsburgh and theNew York Islanders took place,Bill Hewitt'sToronto Maple Leafs were already eliminated, the team ofDanny Gallivan andDick Irvin Jr. were prepping for theMontreal-Buffalo series, andBrian McFarlane was assistingNBC for their Game 1 coverage of the aforementioned Montreal-Buffalo series the next day (April 26).
Starting in the1978 playoffs, theNHL Network begansimulcasting many games withHockey Night in Canada. In these games,Dan Kelly, who was the NHL Network's lead play-by-play announcer, was assigned to do play-by-play along withHNIC color commentators. This for example, happened in Game 7 of the quarterfinal series between theToronto Maple Leafs andNew York Islanders (April 29), where Kelly teamed up withBrian McFarlane. The entire1978 Stanley Cup Finals between theMontreal Canadiens and Boston Bruins and the entire1979 Stanley Cup Finals between theMontreal Canadiens andNew York Rangers were both simulcasted as well.[31]
NBC did not broadcast the sixth game of the1975 Finals, in which thePhiladelphia Flyers defeated theBuffalo Sabres to clinch their second consecutive championship, played in prime time on a Tuesday night. Had the Finals gone to a seventh game, NBC would have pre-empted its prime time lineup on a Thursday night to carry that deciding contest. But by that time, the network had informed the NHL that unlessratings for the Finals spiked, it would drop the sport, which it did at the end of the season.
After being dropped byNBC after the1974–75 season,[32][33][34] the NHL had no national television contract in the United States.[35][36][37] In response to this, the league put together a network of independent stations covering approximately 55% of the country.[38][39][40]
Games typically aired on Monday nights[41] (beginning at 8 p.m.ET) or Saturday afternoons. The package was offered to local stations with no rights fee.[42] Profits would be derived from the advertising, which was about evenly split between the network and the local station. The Monday night games were often billed asThe NHL Game of the Week.[43] Viewers in New York City, Buffalo, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Los Angeles got theGame of the Week on a different channel than their local team's games. Therefore, whenever a team had a “home” game, the NHL Network aired the home team's broadcast rather than their own.
Initially, the Monday night package was marketed toABCaffiliates; the idea being that ABC carriedMonday-night NFL football in the fall and (starting in May1976)Monday-nightMajor League Baseball in the spring and summer, stations would want hockey to create a year-round Monday night sports block. But very few ABC stations picked up the package.
In most U.S. NHL cities, the Hughes NHL affiliate was thesame one that aired the local team's games. About a couple of dozen other stations carried the games. The network had 47 stations[44][45] for the1976–77 season.
By the time thatNBC’s contract with the NHL ended after the1974–75, they were getting a 3.8rating. Meanwhile, the ratings for the NHL Network in its first month of existence were a 3.1 inNew York, 1.9 inLos Angeles, and a 1.3 inChicago. By1978–79, the Monday night games were seen by about 1 million viewers; 300,000 of which were in theBoston area. Also in 1978–79, the 2 p.m. ET version of the Saturday broadcasts (with the first period cut out) was picked up by all participating affiliates except WSBK-TV Boston (which carried the entire game), and often, the cities whose local teams were playing if the local station aired the NHL Network version of a game instead of a locally produced broadcast.
During the1975–76 season, the NHL Network showed selected games from theNHL Super Series (the big one in that package wasRed Army at Philadelphia,[46] but the package didn't include Red Army atMontreal on New Year's Eve 1975, which was seen only onCBC) as well as some playoff games. During the1976–77 season, the NHL Network showed 12 regular season games on Monday nights plus theAll-Star Game. By1978–79 (the final season of the NHL Network's existence), there would be 18 Monday night games and 12 Saturday afternoon games covered.
On January 4, 1976, CBS decided to televise theSoviet Wings/Buffalo SabresSuper Series game[47] nationally. They likely didn't expect anybody to watch as the game went head to head with theAFC Championship Game onNBC. The game also had to be over by 3:30 p.m.EST so that CBS could be ready to broadcast thepregame for theNFC Championship Game. So to save two minutes, they cut "O Canada"[48] much to the dismay of those attending atBuffalo Memorial Auditorium. The game did extend past 3:30 p.m. Eastern time, so CBS ended the telecast seconds after the final buzzer went off, allowing the network to air as much of an abbreviatedNFL Today pregame show prior to the NFC Championship game as possible.
CBC announced prior to the preliminary round of the1976 playoffs that they would not televise any games from the opening round. As a result of this, the rights were sold back to the individual Canadian teams. SinceMontreal received a bye into the quarterfinals, this impactedToronto andVancouver's television coverage. WhileCHCH andCITY both televised all three games of the Toronto-Pittsburgh series (withBill Hewitt andBrian McFarlane on the call),CHAN picked up the Vancouver-New York Islanders series. Game 1 of thePhiladelphia-Toronto series was televised locally toSouthern Ontario by CHCH. Game 1 of thePhiladelphia-Toronto playoff series was televised locally toSouthern Ontario by CHCH.
For Game 4 of the 1976 quarterfinal playoff series between theMontreal Canadiens andChicago Black Hawks (April 16), Marv Albert and Brad Palmer called the game. Albert handled play-by-play for the first and third period while Palmer, the Black Hawks' TV host, handled play-by-play for the second period. They in the process, acted as analysts for each other. Played atChicago Stadium, the game wasblacked out in the Chicago area.
Meanwhile, Marv Albert also during the 1976 playoffs, teamed withTim Ryan (who split play-by-play duties with Albert) andGeorge Michael for Game 1 of theNew York Islanders-Buffalo Sabres series (April 11) andTerry Crisp for Game 7 of theToronto Maple Leafs-Philadelphia Flyers series (April 25). Terry Crisp also worked alongside play-by-play menGene Hart andDon Earle on Game 4 of the aforementioned Toronto-Philadelphia series (April 17).
The1976 Stanley Cup Finals on the NHL Network marked the first time that the NHL's championship series was nationally televised in its entirety in the United States.[39][49] The analysts for the1976 Stanley Cup Finals were active players and each game featured a different analyst alongside Marv Albert. These players wereStan Mikita,Garry Unger,Chico Resch andCurt Bennett. This format continued in1977 with Stan Mikita, Garry Unger, Chico Resch,Don Awrey replacing Curt Bennett, who instead worked with Marv Albert andDan Kelly on Game 4 of thePhiladelphia Flyers-Boston Bruins playoff series (May 1).
Game 1 of the1977Pittsburgh-Toronto playoff series was seen regionally inSouthern Ontario onCHCH-Hamilton.
Starting in the1978 playoffs, the NHL Network begansimulcasting many games withHockey Night in Canada. In these games,Dan Kelly, who was the NHL Network's lead play-by-play announcer, was assigned to do play-by-play along withHNIC color commentators. This for example, happened in Game 7 of the quarterfinal series between theToronto Maple Leafs andNew York Islanders (April 29), where Kelly teamed up withBrian McFarlane. The entire1979 Stanley Cup Finals between theMontreal Canadiens andNew York Rangers was simulcast as well.[31] However, had that final gone to Game 7, then that game would have been broadcast onABC.[50]
1979–80'sChallenge Cup replaced theAll-Star Game. It was a best of three series between the NHL All-Stars against theSoviet Union national squad. In the United States, Game 2,[51] which was held on a Saturday afternoon, was shown on CBS[52] as part ofCBS Sports Spectacular.[53] The network refused to expandCBS Sports Spectacular to carry the game in full so instead, the show came on during the second intermission, showed taped highlights of the first two periods, and then showed the final period live. The lead-in toSports Spectacular wasThe World's Strongest Man. The then-CBS affiliate in Boston, the oldWNAC-TV, broadcast a local college hockey game that led intoSports Spectacular.
The network, the show and their sponsors had a problem with the rink board advertising[54] that the NHL sold atMadison Square Garden, and refused to allow them to be shown on television. As a result, CBS viewers were unable to see the far boards above the yellow kickplate, and could only see players' skates when the play moved to that side of the ice. Games 1 and 3 were shown on theNHL Network,[51][55] where the advertising was no problem.
In1979, ABC was contracted to televise Game 7 of theStanley Cup Finals.[56][50] Since the Finals ended in five games, the contract was void.[57]
It was also around this time that ABC offered the NHL a limited deal thatNHL presidentJohn Ziegler[58] quickly rejected. ABC wanted to split the network and show the NHL in theNortheast andMidwest andNASCAR in theSouth on Sunday afternoons.
