It was probably not a coincidence that at the exact four week mark when the puck drops on the new season, the Canes sent out a post with news on how fans will be able to watch the other 72 games that aren’t on national TV this year.
The local entity broadcasting the games will be called the Hurricanes Hockey Network. It was also announced everyone that Hurricanes fans had come to enjoy on screen will officially be back for the 2026-27 season. Mike Maniscalco and Tripp Tracy had been announced prior, but the release made official that Shane Willis and Hanna Yates would also grace the screen during the broadcasts.
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That Willis is back isn’t a surprise as he was a Hurricanes employee already. Yates, however, is the news as prior to this season she was actually an employee not of the Hurricanes but of the entity that broadcast the games—Main Street Sports, last known by FanDuel Sports Network. For her to continue to appear on the broadcasts, she would have had to become a Hurricanes employee—something that was up in the air as Tom Dundon is known for being, shall we say, thrifty when it comes to the number of people he’ll hire when he hast to.
That said it isn’t that much of a narrative changer for Dundon. The release mentions that VP of Communications Mike Sundheim will add managing “all aspects of production, distribution, sales and marketing for HHN, in coordination with the National Hockey League.” In short he’ll still do all the work he did before and add more to his plate. Yates also will be doing more than just appearing on the broadcast as she added digital host to her title, so it’s possible we’ll see her a lot more on the official team videos that are sent out across social media platforms.
Unfortunately in terms of news, that was it for the communication and that leaves unanswered a huge question: how to watch? The only acknowledgement of how fans would be able to watch this new Hurricanes Hockey Network came at the bottom of the release:
The Hurricanes Hockey Network (HHN) is the exclusive local television home of Carolina Hurricanes hockey. Owned and operated by Hurricanes Holdings, the organization oversees all aspects of production, distribution, sales and marketing for the network, in collaboration with the National Hockey League. The network provides fans with live coverage of games, as well as comprehensive pregame and postgame shows. HHN will be available throughout the Hurricanes’ regional broadcast territory via cable and satellite providers and as a direct-to-consumer streaming subscription to be announced at a later date.
The last part was emphasized by myself, as it doesn’t really let us know which cable and sattelite providers in the area had agreed to sign on to host HHN. That would usually lead one to believe that they don’t have agreements with any of these entities yet.
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One of the holdups may have been signaled on Monday by a reporter from the DLLS site. While the main function of the report was stating that the Dallas Stars would be leaving their distributor Victory+ for Amazon Prime, the same reporter had posts indicating that the Stars were not the only team headed to Amazon Prime
Half of his report has become official as Victory+ announced on Tuesday they were dissolving. It’s worth noting that the other clubs mentioned in that post are either using the NHL Production services like the Hurricanes, or are now former Victory+ teams like Anaheim. There hasn’t been a comment from the Canes on this report—Joe Ovies reported reaching out to them on Monday to get the no comment—but the release on Tuesday again highlights the more traditional cable and satellite model that most fans have gotten used to.
Note at this point we reach the land of speculation and conjecture
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It is worth mentioning again that the current NHL broadcast contract ends after the 2027-28 season, and they will be the first of the non-NFL leagues that will have the opportunity to directly negotiate the ability of centralizing local broadcast rights into one hub within the framework of a new deal. With the consistent collapse of the RSN structure, the central NHL production was seen as the first step to try and get as many local broadcast rights under the wing of the NHL that they can turn around and negotiate as part of the next broadcast deal. The theory is the NHL gets the money from a company like Amazon or Disney to be THE app fans go to when they want to watch their local team play. If those broadcasts end up on a cable, satellite, or streaming service like YouTubeTV, then it would basically be at the discretion of that service.
Thus it’s notable that Amazon is trying to already to be that hub. The report for the Stars is that Amazon Prime subscribers in the Dallas market would get Dallas Stars games as part of the service and not have to pay extra. It would be available to them just like the NFL, NASCAR, and the NBA is. However, if you are a Stars fan living in California, you’d still need the Center Ice or Power Play package from ESPN Ultimate in order to watch their broadcasts.
What that means for the Canes is anyone’s guess. As Ovies noted, just because Tuesday’s release mentioned cable and satellite doesn’t mean that’s set in stone. If Amazon insists on exclusivity except for the separate and offers the team a significantly good price to do so, would anyone be surprised if the Canes took it? It’s also possible that as advertisement revenue would go to the Canes, they would want the broadcasts to be seen by as many people as possible—thus they may take less from Amazon to allow them to get the games elsewhere.
The first broadcast on the HHN—presuming they don’t do some sort of pregame for Opening Night before ESPN takes over—is going to be October 2nd when the Washington Capitals come to town. So, the good—if frustrating—news for fans is we still have over four weeks to find out how games will be available to the masses and what the price of the stand alone streaming service will be. Hopefully the information will be out well before that.
