The NHL wants to stream games in Canada during the upcoming season but it doesn’t sound like it has all the pucks in a row just yet. Doug Perlman, EVP-media, told the Toronto Globe & Mail the league needs to clear carriage with national and regional television rights holders.  That complicated scenario, which also includes the out-of-market NHL Centre Ice cable/sat package, explains why Internet rights will be one of the main topics as the NHL negotiates its next TV rights deals there; agreements with CBC and TSN expire at the end of the ‘07-‘08 season. (Via Sports Business Daily, which is behind a sub wall; the story is also padlocked on the G&M site.)
Streaming NHL isn’t new in the U.S.—Comcast’s OLN and broadband site streamed some games in 2005-06 season; Yahoo streamed some playoff games as part of sub-licensing agreement with OLN. The same pattern should hold for the new season with Yahoo streaming regular games as well. The rights situation was part of the new package the league negotiated and signed last year with Comcast and NBC.
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