The NHL puck stops at TSN
Canadian teams tend to garner better ratings
The NHL has guaranteed that CTVglobemedia-owned TSN will have at least one Canadian team in each of its 70 regular-season games.
In the past, many of its games were all-American matchups, even though Canadian teams tend to garner much better ratings here.
The other plus for the network is that it will have the chance to air a playoff series each year featuring a Canadian team.
Until now, all those series have aired on pubcaster CBC, which just ended its first year of a seven-year deal with the NHL.
CBC continues to have the top-rated NHL property in Canada with its Saturday night "Hockey Night in Canada" broadcast. TSN is not allowed to air games on Saturdays so as not to compete with CBC.
However, TSN has exclusive rights in Canada to NHL hockey on Wednesday nights.
"It's the best deal we've ever had," said CTV president of business planning and sports Rick Brace. "Up until now, our schedule included a lot of U.S. matchups, and the fact we have a Canadian team in all 70 games really improves the schedule."
TSN also nabs national rights to 17 Toronto Maple Leafs games, traditionally the network's top ratings performer.
Over the course of the past five-year deal with the NHL, TSN's hockey ratings increased 32% -- the network averages 410,000 for regular season games. TSN also nabs broadband, wireless and video-on-demand rights to these games.
