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Ahem... With our second pick in this year's TV Draft, The Upper Trash are proud to select... in the Canadian category...


Hockey Night in Canada!

Hockey Night in Canada (often abbreviated Hockey Night or HNIC) is a television broadcast of National Hockey League games in Canada, produced by CBC Sports. Hockey Night consistently remains one of the highest-rated programs on Canadian television. It is also the world's oldest sports-related television program still on the air. The intermission highlight on HNIC is Coach's Corner, a segment featuring Don Cherry and Ron MacLean.

Hockey Night in Canada began airing on Saturday nights on CBC Television in 1952, retaining Imperial Oil as sponsor. It continued to feature regular season NHL games on the English network every Saturday evening during the NHL season, and retained many of the features such as the Hot Stove Lounge and the three stars selection, which originated as an Imperial Oil gasoline promotion and survived even as sponsorship eventually passed from Imperial to Molson and, later, Labatt.

Until the 1990s, there was only one game televised each Saturday night in any particular locality and up to 1968, regular season games were still not broadcast in their entirety. In the early 1960s, the broadcast time was moved to 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time, which allowed the game to be joined in progress during the first period. Starting in the fall of 1968, regular-season games were shown in their entirety. In 1970–71, the Vancouver Canucks joined the NHL, meaning that there were now three possible venues for an HNIC telecast. Four more Canadian-based teams joined the fold in 1979–80 and 1980–81, further increasing coverage. It should be noted, however, that the Quebec Nordiques were initially never shown at home on HNIC, as their owners, Carling O'Keefe Breweries, forbade Molson from televising games in their building. This was partly in response to efforts by the Montreal Canadiens, who were owned by Molson, to keep Quebec out of the league. After the 1989 merger between Molson and Carling O'Keefe, and the subsequent sale of the Nordiques, HNIC was now free to show games from Quebec City. Still, they rarely did, as the Nordiques English-speaking fan base was very small. They appeared more frequently on La Soiree du Hockey.

After Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988, the network began showing occasional double-headers when Canadian teams visited Los Angeles, in order to give the game's greatest star network exposure in Canada. These games were often joined in progress, as the regular start time for HNIC was still 8:00 Eastern Time and the Kings home games began at 7:30 Pacific Time (10:30 Eastern). Beginning in the 1995 season, weekly double-headers became the norm, with games starting at 7:30 Eastern and 7:30 Pacific. In 1998, the start times were moved thirty minutes earlier.

Instant replay made its debut on a 1955 HNIC broadcast. CBC director George Retzlaff made a kinescope recording of a goal, and replayed it to the television audience seconds later.

Beginning with the 1966-67 NHL season, all games broadcast on HNIC were in colour.