History of the NHL on Television in the United States

The National Hockey League (NHL) has never fared as well on American television in comparison to the National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB) or the National Football League (NFL), although that has begun to change with NBC's broadcast of the final game of the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals scoring some of the best ratings ever enjoyed by the sport on American television.

In fact, hockey broadcasting on a national scale was spotty prior to 1981. NBC and CBS held rights at various times, each network carrying weekend afternoon games during the second half of the regular season and the playoffs along with some (but not all) of the Stanley Cup Finals.

From 1971 to 1995, there was no exclusive coverage of games in the United States.

Meanwhile, individual teams have long contracted to air their games on local channels primarily on regional sports networks and in a few cases, on broadcast channels as well.