Gary Bettman on Amazon, NHL on TV, and a potential Nordiques return

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Some Canadiens fans might have got a surprise Monday night when they discovered the Canadiens game against the Pittsburgh Penguins wouldn’t be televised on TSN.

Instead the game was on Amazon Prime Video in English, as well as being televised in French on RDS. That’s because in April Amazon acquired the Canadian TV rights to select Monday night NHL games from Rogers for the next two seasons. The NHL’s 12-year, $5.2-billion broadcasting agreement with Rogers is set to expire after the 2025-26 season, which coincides with the end of the Prime deal.

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Monday’s matchup between the Canadiens and Penguins was the first of 26 Monday night Prime NHL games this season. Four more Canadiens games at the Bell Centre will be televised by Prime: Nov. 18 against the Edmonton Oilers, Dec. 9 against the Anaheim Ducks, Jan. 6 against the Vancouver Canucks and April 14 against the Chicago Blackhawks.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman met with the media at the Bell Centre before Monday night’s game and was asked what message he had for Canadiens fans upset the game wasn’t on TSN who now feel they need to pay for yet another platform to watch games.

“First of all, I believe Prime is more widely distributed than any other platform — cable or satellite — in the country,” Bettman said. “Most people have Prime. And as the media landscape continues to evolve with technology there are going to be changes in distribution. Having said that, judge the quality of the product they put out and how they cover the game and then decide instead of in advance whether or not there’s a concern there and I think Prime’s going to do a great job.”

Bettman added that hockey as a media property in Canada is “perhaps” the strongest property there is, comparing it to the NFL in the United States. He also said Prime represents another opportunity in the evolution of media and how properties cover, produce and distribute sports.

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On Oct. 4, Prime launched a six-episode docuseries titled FACEOFF: Inside the NHL, providing what the league describes as “unprecedented access to the National Hockey League’s biggest teams and most compelling characters, all at different stages of their careers.”

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Bettman said it’s too early to determine if the national NHL TV rights could be split in Canada after the deal with Rogers comes to an end.

“The world’s moving away from cable TV,” Bettman said. “Cord-cutting, cord-nevers continues and the reach of cable and satellite is not what it was and the world — putting us aside — is moving towards other forms of distribution. We’re very mindful of that and keep in mind Prime is distributed in Canada more broadly than anything else.”

As expected, Bettman was asked about the possibility of Quebec City ever getting an expansion team in the future. Bettman said the league isn’t even focused now on starting an expansion process to go from 32 to 34 teams.

“We think what we have is working very, very well,” Bettman said. “If the right opportunity came along (for expansion) we’d consider it.”

As for any possibility of Quebec City getting a team again after the Nordiques left for Colorado in 1995 and became the Avalanche, Bettman said: “That depends on a lot of factors that we don’t control, including someone — or an entity — that is engaged enough and committed enough financially to want to even be considered and it hasn’t happened yet.”

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Bettman added there’s no doubt about the passion for the game in Quebec City and noted that the Nordiques had to leave because there was no new arena at the time and no prospect of a new arena back then or even someone who wanted to own the team.

“Putting the genie back in the bottle is always a very tough thing to do,” the commissioner added.

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The Arizona Coyotes did move during the off-season and Bettman was there for the first game of the Utah Hockey Club on Oct. 8 — a 5-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks in front of a sellout crowd of 11,131 at the Delta Center, counting only unobstructed seats. The building was full and it will be renovated for hockey over the next three years.

“It was great,” Bettman said about that game. “The building was full, the building was loud, energized. The fans were very excited. That’s going to be a very great home for the team. They’re off to a great start and what they’ve managed to accomplish in five months is nothing short of incredible and a testament to the ownership.”

When asked if in hindsight he regrets keeping the struggling franchise in Arizona for so long, Bettman said: “We tried the best we could in Arizona for a long period of time. And over the course of the Coyotes history there were issues and some issues we were able to solve and then other issues popped up. The fact was we finally reached the point where there was no major-league facility for them to play in and the prospect was so far from certain for a new facility — and even if there was a prospect of a new arena we were looking at probably at least five years and that just became untenable.”

scowan@postmedia.com

x.com/StuCowan

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