Wednesday Night Rivalry and Wednesday Night Hockey was the branding used for National Hockey League games that aired on NBCSN on Wednesday nights during the regular season from January 2013 to May 2021.
In the 2012–13 NHL season, NBCSN rebranded their coverage of Wednesday night games as Wednesday Night Rivalry. It primarily featured rivalry games, although the network has received criticism for games which do not seem to include a strong element of rivalry (such as Los Angeles-Detroit, Pittsburgh-Buffalo, and Chicago-Philadelphia) are common. NBCSN sometimes produces a Wednesday Nightcap game primarily featuring Western Conference teams immediately following their Wednesday Night Rivalry game. Beginning in the 2013–14 NHL season, NBCSN aired the series NHL Rivals, which looks back at the participating teams' historic rivalry, leading up to their Wednesday Night Rivalry game. That same season, NBCSN promoted the games with the slogan "The Night You Love To Hate".[1]
Beginning with the 2018–19 NHL season, NBC Sports rebranded its Wednesday night broadcasts of the NHL as Wednesday Night Hockey, with the focus shifting from rivalry games to powerhouse teams and top NHL stars. The first season of Wednesday Night Hockey featured more West Coast games and a few matchups featuring Canadian teams.[2]
As part of the new Wednesday Night Hockey format, "Inside the Glass" reporter Pierre McGuire is now assigned to work the late game of Wednesday Night Hockey doubleheaders while Brian Boucher takes over "Inside the Glass" reporting duties for the early game alongside Mike Emrick and Eddie Olczyk. McGuire joins the lead team of Emrick and Olczyk only during single-header Wednesday Night Hockey games. In addition, Kathryn Tappen replaced Liam McHugh as the studio host for the first half of the season when the latter was promoted to work postgame coverage of Sunday Night Football. The Toronto-Winnipeg game on October 24 marked the first-ever regular-season NHL on NBC broadcast to feature only Canadian teams and an NBC-produced broadcast (as opposed to a simulcast of a Canadian network).[8][2]
On February 20, Mike Tirico made his NHL announcing debut calling the Blackhawks–Red Wings game with Olczyk and Boucher.[9]
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the start of the 2020–21 NHL season has been delayed to January 13, 2021, and all teams played a 56-game division-only schedule with the NHL temporarily realigning divisions to minimize travel as much as possible, with all seven Canadian teams playing one division due to COVID-19 cross-border travel restrictions imposed by the Government of Canada.
NBC did not name a presumptive lead play-by-play voice following the retirement of Mike Emrick and chose to rotate between John Forslund and Kenny Albert.[13] Eventually, Mike Tirico was added to the rotation starting with the Bruins-Flyers game on February 3.
This was the final season of NBC broadcasting NHL games before the league's new American national television contracts with ESPN/ABC and TNT beginning with the 2021–22 season.[14][15][16][17] TNT has largely maintained Wednesday night as the primary night for its coverage.[18]
Wednesday Night Rivalry has produced successful viewership for NBCSN.
During its inaugural season, Wednesday Night Rivalry was called "the hottest new brand in sports" by Forbes. It claimed six of the top eight most-watched NHL regular-season telecasts ever on NBC Sports Network and averaged 646,000 viewers. With the success of Wednesday Night Rivalry, the 2012–13 NHL season was the most watched NHL season on cable in 19 years.[3]
During the 2013–14 NHL season, Wednesday Night Rivalry averaged 559,000 viewers, up 26% from its average viewership of Wednesday night games during the 2011–12 NHL season (443,000). The first two seasons of Wednesday Night Rivalry has recorded none games with more than 700,000 viewers as compared to four during the two seasons prior to the introduction of Wednesday Night Rivalry.[4]
During the 2014–15 NHL season, NBCSN's Wednesday Night Rivalry coverage averaged 565,000 viewers. NBCSN's opening night coverage of Bruins-Flyers had an opening-night cable record 956,000 viewers. Seven of the 10 most-watched NHL games on NBCSN were Wednesday Night Rivalry games.[5]
During the 2015–16 NHL season, Wednesday Night Rivalry averaged 608,000 viewers and produced three of the 10 most-watched NHL regular-season games on NBCSN during their time as the NHL pay television carrier. NBCSN's 10-most watched games of the 2015–16 season were either Wednesday Night Rivalry or Sunday Night Hockey games.[6]
Notes
↑ Originally scheduled to air exclusively on NBCSN, but was blacked out in the Denver market due to a carriage dispute with Altitude Sports and Entertainment, Dish Network and Comcast. The game was televised locally on Altitude instead.
↑ Blacked out in the Los Angeles market. Game was televised locally on Fox Sports West.
↑ Blacked out in the Detroit and Tampa markets. Game was televised locally on Fox Sports Detroit and Fox Sports Sun. A third game between Vegas and San Jose was originally scheduled to air on NBCSN, but was postponed to February 25 due to COVID-19 protocols.
↑ Blacked out in the Philadelphia market. Game was televised locally on NBC Sports Philadelphia. Replaced the originally scheduled game between Arizona and St. Louis, which was moved to February 8. The Philadelphia–Buffalo game was originally scheduled on March 30.
↑ Blacked out in the Denver market. Game was televised locally on Altitude Sports and Entertainment. Game was originally scheduled on February 6.
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