The Stanley Cup playoffs are here. Find out how to watch the NHL postseason on Sportsnet.
Sportsnet rules broadcasts of NHL games in Canada like an iron fist.
Yes, other Canadian sports broadcasters have a slice of the NHL pie, but over the past few years, Sportsnet has consumed a bigger portion of it.
Here’s how to tune into the games that will be broadcast on this channel.
What channel is Sportsnet?
In Canada, for those who have Rogers, Rogers Sportsnet is on 99 and 394 for SD and 395 and 584 for HD. The full Sportsnet channel lineup for other providers can be found here.
In the United States, games that are broadcast on Sportsnet in Canada will be shown on alternate U.S. channels. If you want to live stream the games, fubo.TV is your best bet. Sign up for a free trial now.
For those in the States wondering what on earth Sportsnet is, here’s a little history.
The network that would become Sportsnet started out in 1998 as CTV Sportsnet, which, at the time, was owned by CTV, Rogers Communications and Liberty Media. In order to be a legitimate sports network in Canada, you have to have some rights to broadcast NHL games, which they immediately acquired.
Two years later, CTV Sportsnet was acquired by Rogers, and it was renamed to Rogers Sportsnet. 10 years later, Rogers Sportsnet went on an expansion spree, launching a second channel, Rogers Sportsnet One, and expanding their reach across the country and Canadian media landscape, connecting its tentacles to the web and through the radio.
By 2013, Rogers Sportsnet was known simply as Sportsnet, and, that same year, the network reached a deal with the NHL to become the exclusive rightsholder to the league’s telecasts in Canada, with the scraps going to its competitors TSN and the CBC.
So, if you’re watching an NHL game in Canada, more often than not, you’re watching that game on Sportsnet, and it will be the dominant channel for the 2018 NHL playoffs. Many hockey fans north of the border are now accustomed to Sportsnet, but it still bothers some people that the network has so much power in the NHL universe in the land of hockey and maple syrup.
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That’s the way media rolls nowadays, and one can only just accept it, and put on Sportsnet to see their Canadian teams try to make a run to bring the Stanley Cup back home.
For more from the NHL playoffs, make sure to follow FanSided and stay tuned to our NHL hub for all the latest news and results.