The game of hockey makes a move into the streaming age. The National Hockey League announced alongside Amazon and Rogers Communications a two-year agreement that nationally televised Monday night NHL games will move to Prime Video in Canada beginning with the upcoming 2024-25 season.
The package had been named “Prime Monday Night Hockey.” These games’ broadcasts will be produced by Prime Video and will be exclusive to Canadian Amazon Prime Members, according to NHL Public Relations.
“We are thrilled to collaborate with Amazon and Rogers on this project. Amazon has a strong track record of presenting sports on Prime Video in a highly innovative and viewer-friendly manner,” NHL Senior Executive Vice President, Media & International Strategy David Proper said, per NHL Public Relations. “We are committed to serving hockey fans and reaching new audiences with our robust content distribution strategy that brings viewers exciting NHL content to a multitude of streaming services. With this groundbreaking partnership, we are continuing to stay true to that goal.”
A broadcast team will be announced at a later date, and the service will be in English. While not explicitly stated, it can be implied that there is no French simulcast.
As traditional television users continue to decline, this could be a sign of the shift in how hockey will be watched going forward. This comes at the same time as the Seattle Kraken announcing they will part ways with their regional sports network, ROOTS, after three seasons to move their non-national games to Amazon Prime (Exclusive to the Pacific Northwest states plus Alaska) and local stations.
