TORONTO -- In hockey, they say it’s best to skate where the puck is going instead of chasing after where it’s been. Amazon Prime feels it’s doing just that entering a 12-year commitment to broadcast NHL on Prime “Wednesday Night Hockey” in Canada.
“We at Amazon think long term, and as you look at the NHL, the game is in great shape and we feel lucky to be able to have this for the next 12 years,” Mark Shopiro, head of Prime Video Canada told NHL.com on Monday. “Our goal is to make Prime as valuable as possible for our Canadian members, and when it comes to sport in Canada, it doesn’t get much bigger than hockey.
“Within hockey, it doesn’t get much bigger than the NHL, so to be able to have “Wednesday Night Hockey” and the playoffs included with a Prime membership, it’s something we think our members will see a lot of value out of and, as a result, we are really excited about it.”
A schedule that will feature 27 national regular-season games this season will begin Wednesday at Scotiabank Arena when the Toronto Maple Leafs host the New York Islanders (7:30 p.m. ET; Prime, MSGSN), a game featuring forward Gavin McKenna for Toronto, the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, and defenseman Matthew Schaefer for New York, the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NHL Draft.
After two seasons broadcasting “Monday Night Hockey” on Prime, the broadcast shifts to Wednesday moving forward and, for the first time, will include broadcasts in both English and French for each game.
“Our belief is to be the most valuable membership for Canadians, we need to be able to serve Canadians in English and French on the broadcasts so that was a really important point for us as we started out on this,” Shopiro said. “We are very excited to have our first year of French broadcasting here, now English and French. We will be the only national broadcaster to be able to do so, which we feel a lot of pride in.”
Additionally, this season, NHL on Prime will include the rights to broadcast two First Round Stanley Cup Playoff series and one Second Round series at no additional cost to Prime members.
“I can’t think of a three or four more exciting weeks on the calendar than those first two rounds of the playoffs, so to be able to bring those to our Prime members in English and French is really exciting for us,” Shopiro said. “We talked about the game being in great shape, and when we get to the playoffs, it’s even more entertaining.”
Returning this season is play-by-play voice John Forslund, alongside analysts Jody Shelley in the booth and Thomas Hickey between the benches to lead the English broadcast with Andi Petrillo reporting from rink side. On the French broadcast, Alain Crete, who recently retired from RDS with more than 40 years of broadcasting experience, will share play-by-play responsibilities with Michael Roy alongside analyst Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre.
Now that Prime has established their broadcast over two years of Monday Night Hockey, Shopiro said Wednesday Night Hockey will continue to innovate and push the boundaries of what viewers can expect.
“Our focus in our two years of Monday Night Hockey was on getting the broadcast right,” Shopiro said. “Our production team has done a phenomenal job of that. The game is in such good shape, we were just focusing on the game and bringing fans closer to the action. With doing that, we are also trying to innovate on behalf of customers and fans at the same time.”
One of the innovative features Shopiro said he is most proud of is “Home Ice Access,” which gives viewers the ability to get the feel inside the rink a half hour before the traditional broadcast begins.
““Home Ice Access” is something that started as an idea and we just continued to build on it on how we bring fans closer to the game,” Shopiro said. “At the end of last season, we were throwing up to the booth in a segment called “Eavesdropping” with John Forslund and Jody Shelley and then throw it down to Thomas Hickey in between the benches, and you could just feel us getting closer to the game. That’s a focus on the fan and bringing the fan closer to the game that led us to that, and we will continue to innovate.”
Forslund, who himself brings over 40 years of broadcasting experience, including 25 years as the voice of the Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes until assuming play-by-play duties in 2021 with the Seattle Kraken, said he is confident the broadcast will continue to evolve while still maintaining the essentials of what Canadian hockey fans expect.
“What excites me is we are ready for the next step,” Forslund said. “We always have to get better. You hear players say that all the time, and as partners with the League as broadcasters, we have to do that too. We have to continue to evolve our product using the resources we have, and I think our fans have been able to see with those resources in our first two years how we present the game. I am really excited about that because I think there are some other things we can do while still maintaining the standard of a classic hockey broadcast that fans will enjoy.”
