NHL on ABC
television series
The NHL on ABC is a presentation of National Hockey League (NHL) games produced by ESPN and televised on ABC in the United States.
ABC first broadcast NHL games during the 1993 Stanley Cup playoffs on April 18, 1993, under a two-year time-buy agreement with ESPN. After two years, the NHL left ABC for newcomer Fox, while remaining with ESPN.
As part of a joint contract with ESPN, which was reached right before the 1998–99 season, the NHL returned to ABC on February 6, 2000, with their coverage of the 2000 NHL All-Star Game in Toronto. Regular season game telecasts returned to ABC on March 18, 2000. ABC also gained the rights to select weekend games from each round of the Stanley Cup playoffs and the last five games of the Stanley Cup Final, including any if-needed ones. After the 2004 Stanley Cup Final, the NHL left ABC again, this time for NBC because Disney executives admitted that they overpaid for the 1999–2004 deal. ESPN, who was set to continue with the NHL, later dropped it from their schedules after the 2004–05 lockout.
On March 10, 2021, ESPN announced a new contract to hold half of the NHL's media rights beginning in the 2021–22 season. In this deal, ABC will broadcast up to 10 regular season games per season, primarily late-season games of the week (branded as ABC Hockey Saturday presented by Honda (formerly Expedia and Hotels.com) for sponsorship purposes), and the All-Star Game. ABC exclusively televises the Stanley Cup Final in even-numbered years. All games carried by ABC are streamed on ESPN+ and, since 2025, ESPN DTC.
Like other American national NHL broadcasts, games may be available in Canada on Sportsnet or streamed on Sportsnet+ as part of a 12-year agreement with the NHL that lasts to the end of the 2025–26 season (it was later extended another 12 years to 2037–38 season), subject to blackout restrictions.
“NHL on ABC” enters the record as television series. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what television and series can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“NHL on ABC” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, television and series provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6954070. The first chronological checks are 1993, 1998, 2000 and 2004.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “NHL on ABC”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow NHL on ABC primary sources, NHL on ABC archive and television research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “NHL on ABC”?
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- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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This entry incorporates text from “NHL on ABC” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.