As Oilers make a push for the Stanley Cup Final, playoff hockey begins to disappear from CBC

Hockey fans in Canada hoping to watch the Edmonton Oilers move toward a berth in the Stanley Cup final this weekend won’t be able to do so for free, after CBC chose to not carry Games 5 and 6 of the Western Conference final.

The games will be available only to those who subscribe to Sportsnet, either through their cable service or directly from Rogers Sports & Media through the Sportsnet+ app.

CBC scheduled a one-hour broadcast of the Canadian Screen Awards followed by a Just For Laughs special, beginning at 8 p.m. ET on Friday, during the highly anticipated fifth matchup between the Oilers and the Dallas Stars. The teams went into the game with their series knotted 2-2.

The public broadcaster will air the season finale of the cross-country reality competition show Canada’s Ultimate Challenge during Game 6 on Sunday evening.

CBC has carried playoff hockey broadcasts produced by Sportsnet ever since that Rogers Communications-owned specialty service struck a 12-year deal for national rights to NHL games beginning with the 2014-15 season.

In an e-mail to The Globe and Mail, a CBC spokesperson indicated it was the public broadcaster’s decision to not carry Sportsnet’s broadcast of the two key games. If the Oilers advance, it will be their first time winning the conference since 2006.

“We set our schedule long before the playoffs are determined. And that schedule includes Canada’s Ultimate Challenge on Sunday nights (April 28-June 2) as well as the CSAs gala,” said Chuck Thompson. “With that context, we knew there would be occasions during the playoffs when CBC would not be carrying certain games.”

Without access to CBC’s audience, viewership will likely be significantly lower for the games.

A Sportsnet spokesperson declined to comment.

The decision to air non-hockey programming during the playoffs is extremely unusual for CBC, which used to treat the season as sacrosanct when it owned the national NHL rights, much to the dismay of those in the network’s news division, who had to contend with its flagship program, The National, being regularly rescheduled from April to June each year.

In fact, the playoffs have historically had such a claim on the national consciousness that when Queen Elizabeth II visited Ottawa on April 16, 1982, to participate in ceremonies marking the proclamation of the Canadian constitution, a 90-minute variety show at the National Arts Centre airing live on CBC TV was scheduled to begin at the unusual hour of 6 p.m. ET, to ensure the network was clear for the 7:35 p.m. start time of that evening’s playoff game between the Quebec Nordiques and Boston Bruins.

CBC confirmed it is scheduled to air all games of the Stanley Cup final, regardless of which teams are in the series.

This weekend’s disappearance of the playoffs from the main CBC network isn’t the first time this season viewers have hit roadblocks trying to access NHL broadcasts that they have been able to watch free for decades. When the second round of this year’s playoffs began in early May, viewers who tried to tune in to the main CBC TV’s network feed on the broadcaster’s Gem app were served up a test-pattern-style screen explaining that rights limitations prevented the content from being livestreamed.

Viewers who discovered they had been shut out from watching the playoffs without a Sportsnet subscription expressed outrage on social media.

In a statement to The Globe and Mail, Sportsnet spokesperson Jason Jackson said: “We have an agreement with CBC that doesn’t include Stanley Cup playoffs broadcasts on Gem.”

Thompson, the CBC spokesperson, told The Globe: “Sportsnet and CBC entered into a new agreement last fall that doesn’t include Stanley Cup playoffs broadcasts on Gem.” In a follow-up e-mail, he added: “Ultimately, it’s a business decision, and through an agreeable negotiation with Sportsnet, we landed on which games will be carried on CBC and on which platforms.”