Happy Tuesday, everyone. The long, long, never to be this long again, training camp is over and the NHL season is here. Next year, we will be well underway by this part of October.

There are three games tonight, none have the Leafs in them, so they don't matter. All are on Sportsnet 1. Over on the main channel they have Game 3 of the Blue Jays laughing at the Yankees.

Yankees radio broadcast of Vladdy's grand slam
by u/iamthegame13 in Torontobluejays

Now before we get to the news, I want to give you the most succinct rundown I can of how to watch the Leafs in Canada. If you are outside the country, you are on your own for figuring it out.

Rogers owns the NHL rights for all of Canada. They bought them from the NHL so everything that follows comes from the NHL selling rights to broadcast games. Every game not involving a Canadian team is on Sportsnet + streaming. However, you must have the Premium version to find them all. This also includes all games carried by TSN in the Leafs region, but is only available to people outside the region. This region is broadly all of southern Ontario up to a line that demarcates the Senators region.

TSN has bought the rights to show some regional broadcasts of the Leafs. Now, don't get fooled if a game vs another Canadian team that our preview tells you is on Sportsnet is listed on a TSN channel, that's regional rights to that game for the other team. If you live in that team's region, you're gold, it will be on TSN. If you live in Toronto it won't. That structure covers almost all the games in the NHL and the Leafs games in the regular season.

If you have Sportsnet or TSN on a TV package, you can sign in online or on a TV app where available and watch the streaming service for free. Note that what you get on Sportsnet via your TV provider is not the premium package. If your TV does not have a Sportsnet app, you can watch via the browser on your TV. It works fine, and looks as good to my eye as the TSN app broadcasts.

The Prime exception: Amazon Prime in Canada only has some NHL games, including some Leafs games. They bought the exclusive rights from the NHL/Rogers and these games are not available anywhere else. They are not on Prime in any other country.

Both TSN and Sportsnet are available as yearly subscriptions or month-to-month on Prime in Canada. The price is the same but you should be aware that Sportsnet is selling their TV channels streamed live, not the Sportsnet + content.

All of these services offer DVR like controls, let you watch from the start or watch live, although the TSN player is less obvious about it.

The CBC exception: CBC retains the rights to broadcast some Sportsnet HNIC games including many Leafs games. These games are also sometimes on City TV. They are available to stream on CBC Gem in the regular season but not the playoffs. This is free to anyone using a Canadian IP. If you have the City TV streaming package, you can check for yourself if games are available there in the regular season but Rogers has exclusive rights to all NHL playoff games, and only some are shown on the CBC but not streamed on Gem.

If you live in the Leafs region, you can watch all 82 games online with three paid services, all of which include a lot of non-NHL content. Yes indeed, this is expensive. About what a pair of good tickets to a game cost. (Depending on how you define good.)

If you live outside of the Leafs region, you are pretty much stuck paying for the Premium version of Sportsnet streaming, or you will be limited to whatever the CBC or Prime have to offer.

Rogers, eh, you'd think they owned the team the way they act.

Anyhow, speaking of Rogers properties:

Let's Go Blue Jays!

Some news:

IIHF - New era for Women’s World Championship
The IIHF, the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), and the global women’s hockey community have come together…
IIHF International Ice Hockey Federation

The Women's Worlds will move to November starting next year, and that means the PWHL season will start in late November from now on. The IIHF has also added a European Championship, which will give the full field of European teams a more level playing field to compete in.

This is my guess as well. Paper loans are legal right now:

And that's the first day of the regular season. The important stuff starts tomorrow night.

From The Branches