NHL on Fox

NHL on Fox was a television program that televised NHL games on the Fox television network and produced by Fox Sports.

The program ran from the 1994–1995 NHL season until the 1998–1999 NHL season. Fox paid $31 million a year ($155 million in total) to televise the NHL.

Coverage Overview
NHL's initial deal with Fox was significant as a network television contract in the United States was long thought unattainable during the presidency of John Ziegler.

For seventeen years after the 1975 Finals was broadcast on NBC, there would be no national over-the-air network coverage of the NHL in the United States (with the exception of CBS' coverage of Game 2 of the 1979 Challenge Cup and Game 6 of the 1980 Stanley Cup Finals and NBC's coverage of the NHL All-Star Game from 1990-1994) and only spotty coverage on regional networks.

This was due to the fact that no network was willing to commit to a large number of games, in turn, providing low ratings for NHL games.

ABC would eventually resume broadcasting regular NHL games (on a time buy basis through ESPN) for the 1992–93 season (and continuing through the 1993–94 season before Fox took over for the next five seasons).

The Fox deal is perhaps best remembered for the FoxTrax puck, which while generally popular according to Fox Sports, generated a great deal of controversy from longtime fans of the game.

Regular Season
Fox televised between five and eleven regionally distributed games on Saturday or Sunday afternoons during the regular season where anywhere from three to six games ran concurrently.