Your definitive guide to watching the Montreal Canadiens in 2016-17

Ever since the NHL and Rogers announced their broadcast deal, following your favourite hockey team hasn’t exactly been easy. But, after a couple of years working out the kinks, it should be a little easier this season than in years past.

TSN 690 will be covering every game for your listening pleasure, with no blackouts and online audio streaming available everywhere. So if you find yourself in Siberia, you can listen in on every single Habs game this season.

As far as watching the games go, this is the third year since Rogers took over the national Canadian coverage of the NHL, and the third time’s the charm for Canadiens fans. There will be 44 nationally broadcast games in Canada, meaning that the majority of Habs games will be available to watch with most cable or satellite packages.

If you don’t want to take any chances, there are a couple of options at your disposal for those 38 regional games that you might not have access to with a basic package.

NHL Centre Ice – Various prices

Centre Ice can be ordered through your cable or satellite provider and ranges in cost between $200-250 CAD. Subscriptions can be paid in full at the beginning of the season, or monthly depending on your provider. Be sure to ask about regional blackouts before signing up to make sure you get what you want. Cable and satellite providers are required to abide by blackout restrictions set forth by the NHL, and in most cases they should be able to give you a good idea of if and how many games will be blacked out.

Rogers NHL GameCentre Live – CDN $179.99 (early bird) to $199.99

You can purchase a subscription to GameCentre Live through NHL.com, or if you happen to be a Rogers internet customer, you might qualify for a free subscription depending on your internet package (but beware, Rogers blacks out any nationally broadcast games and some regional games that are available on TV.)

The best thing about GameCentre Live is that it can be accessed from most devices including Apple TV, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, Roku, Google Chromecast and most cellphones.

The price listed above is based on last year’s price as Rogers has yet to reveal this season’s cost. Rumour has it they have made a series of improvements to the GameCentre experience, upgrading to the multiple angles, live stat updates, and player trackers. This will hopefully not mean an increase in the subscription price.

Schedule

The table below lists every game and its broadcast availability. RDS has yet to release its schedule, but it’s safe to assume that any game not covered by TVA Sports will be covered by RDS (as has been the case the past two seasons.) We will update the schedule once that is officially announced.

The blue rows indicate a nationally broadcast game in Canada. The white rows are regional broadcasts. There should also be a few games that will be broadcast nationally both in Canada and the US, however, NHL Network has yet to release its broadcast schedule (we will update accordingly, so check back throughout the season for updates). Unfortunately the Habs won’t be featured in one of the thirteen games being broadcast on primetime NBC, but will be featured in five NBCSN games this season.