CBC’s ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ to return this season with PWHL games

TORONTO — The “Hockey Night in Canada” tradition will live on this season with a fresh look and a new league.

A Saturday mainstay for generations of Canadians will continue as the CBC has partnered with the Professional Women’s Hockey League for the upcoming season, the broadcaster and PWHL announced Monday.

The CBC previously aired NHL games on the program, but that ended last spring when a sublicensing agreement with Rogers Communications wasn’t renewed.

A Dec. 5 matchup between the Montreal Victoire and expansion PWHL Hamilton side will be the first women’s hockey game to be featured on Hockey Night.

“Hockey is more than the NHL now,” CBC Sports executive director Chris Wilson said in an interview. “So for us to take the brand and spread it right now onto the PWHL for this coming season and maybe to other areas down the road, we’re really optimistic that it will breathe life into the brand for the long term.

“Yes, it’s going to be different. But it’s going to be really exciting, really inclusive and really accessible to a large number of Canadians.”

The CBC first aired HNIC on television in 1952. The public broadcaster started producing the show on radio back in 1936.

“Hockey Night in Canada is a fixture in Canadian sports culture, and its Saturday night schedule has ritually captivated hockey fans for nearly a century,” PWHL executive vice-president of business operations Amy Scheer said in a statement.

“Our partnership with CBC has been instrumental in the accessibility and growth of the league, and the opportunity to be part of this iconic brand represents another groundbreaking step for the PWHL to connect with our fans and forge new traditions together.”

Hockey Night will return as part of CBC Sports Primetime, CBC’s new weekly Saturday night sports show that launches this weekend, the broadcaster said.

The show will feature Canada’s high-performance athletes from a number of sports, including hockey, cricket, figure skating and curling.

“I think (CBC) has a real opportunity here to revive the brand of Hockey Night in Canada with women’s hockey,” Michael McKinley, author of “Hockey Night in Canada: 60 Seasons,” said in a recent interview.

“I mean, they kind of invented so much about the NHL (broadcast), the CBC did, when they started radio broadcasting and television broadcasting of NHL games.

“Now they’ve got another chance to be pioneers in a sport that’s getting rapidly popular.”

The network plans coverage for eight prime-time PWHL games all on Hockey Night, with pre- and post-game panel analysis along with accompanying digital content on the CBC Sports website.

“I think it’s going to be an amazing evolution,” said Mike Naraine, a sport management associate professor at Brock University. “I think you’re going to see an amazing uptick in viewership for the women’s product because of people being able to watch it on CBC in prime time on Saturday night.”

Staying true to tradition, the CBC said, each Hockey Night in Canada game will feature a Canadian-based team.

The network also announced that Radio-Canada has acquired exclusive radio broadcast rights for all Victoire games in Canada this season. The full PWHL schedule, including all CBC and Radio-Canada games, will be announced on Friday.

“Things have changed,” Wilson said. “Canada has changed. Hockey has changed. Sports in general has changed.

“So I think what we’re looking forward to, and we’ve been talking about this for a number of years, is how can Hockey Night in Canada reflect the state of hockey now? And how can Hockey Night in Canada reflect the state of the country now?”

The league previously partnered with the CBC, TSN, Sportsnet and Amazon Prime for Canadian broadcasts. All four outlets will return this season.

The PWHL, which is entering its fourth season, held its inaugural draft at CBC headquarters in Toronto in 2023.

The league has three other expansion sides — Detroit, Las Vegas and San Jose — on board this season.

Pre-season play begins Nov. 22, and all 12 clubs will be in action on the Dec. 5-6 opening weekend.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2026.