Update, September 12, 2026: Sportsnet has confirmed Elliotte Friedman and Kevin Bieksa will return for Saturday Night Hockey. Read the updated report and announced panel.
Canada’s hockey broadcasting market is changing before the season has even begun.
The confirmed part is already substantial.
Rogers and Prime Video signed a 12-year sublicensing agreement that makes Amazon the exclusive Canadian home of national Wednesday-night NHL games beginning this season. Prime will carry at least 26 regular-season games each year in English and French, along with two first-round playoff series and one second-round series.
The first Wednesday broadcast is scheduled for September 30.
The unresolved part is the talent.
Elliotte Friedman and Kevin Bieksa reached the end of their Sportsnet contracts without announced extensions, according to multiple reports this week. Kelly Hrudey is already out after Sportsnet chose not to renew his contract for the coming season.
That has produced a rush of reporting linking Amazon to some of Sportsnet’s most recognizable hockey voices.
It has also produced conflicting information.
Some reports have described Amazon as an aggressive bidder for Friedman and have connected Bieksa and Hrudey to the same possibility. Other reporting on Friday said Friedman was moving closer to a new agreement with Sportsnet.
None of the principal parties has announced a move involving Friedman or Bieksa.
That distinction is the story’s guardrail.
Amazon has not been confirmed as the new home of the Hockey Night panel. What Amazon does have is enough premium NHL inventory to compete seriously for the people who help define how Canadians experience the league.
The company’s hockey position now reaches beyond one national package. Prime Video also announced that it will become the exclusive local streaming home for six NHL clubs in their U.S. regional markets this season.
In Canada, the Wednesday schedule includes six Toronto Maple Leafs games and seven Montreal Canadiens games, with five all-Canadian matchups. Prime is not filling an occasional hole in the calendar. It is building a recurring national night around the NHL.
That changes the leverage around talent.
Friedman is one of the country’s most influential hockey reporters. Bieksa has become one of Sportsnet’s most distinctive studio analysts. Hrudey carried nearly three decades of Hockey Night experience before his contract was not renewed.
Any one of them would give a competing broadcast immediate familiarity.
Amazon does not need to reproduce Saturday night to become important to Canadian hockey viewers. It already owns Wednesday.
The question now is who will be sitting at the desk when those games begin.
