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Hockey Night in Canada is a popular television broadcast of National Hockey League games in Canada. It is consistently the highest-rated Canadian-produced show on Canadian airwaves.
The 2001–2002 hockey season marked the 50th season for Hockey Night in Canada. Legendary announcers Foster Hewitt, son Bill Hewitt, Danny Gallivan, Dick Irvin, Bob Cole, and former NHL player (veteran of one game) and coach Don Cherry have been the voices of HNIC over the past 50 years, bringing the games of the NHL into houses across Canada. Having once been anchored by broadcasters Wes McKnight, Ward Cornell, Jack Dennett, Ted Darling and Dave Hodge, the show is now hosted by Ron MacLean.
Hockey Night in Canada is aired in English on the CBC every Saturday evening during the regular National Hockey League season, where two games are consecutively aired live.
The first game is usually played in the East, and is called by Cole and Harry Neale. Critics of the show say that Toronto Maple Leafs games have aired too often in this time slot, to the exclusion of the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens, but the CBC says with budget cutbacks and the relatively national popularity of the Maple Leafs, that Toronto games will make the most money for them.
The second game is generally from a western venue, and is called by Chris Cuthbert and Greg Millen. Usually the second game features the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames or Edmonton Oilers; but on some occasions it will be an eastern Canadian team playing one from the western United States.
Many playoff games, regardless of the day of the week, are also aired; this gives the CBC an unusual program schedule from late March through early June. All playoff games involving Canadian teams are aired by CBC, though not always on a national basis.
During mid-February every year, HNIC holds an event called "Hockey Day in Canada" to celebrate hockey at the grassroots level. The broadcast will be held in some rural community in Western Canada, and will have 3 games, all involving Canadian teams. However, due to the NHL Lockout in 2004, CBC has cancelled the festivities due to the lack of funds.
The famous theme song, "The Hockey Theme", was written in 1968 by Dolores Claman and has been referred to as Canada's second national anthem.
Until 2004, Radio-Canada (simulcasting with RDS in later years) aired La Soirée du hockey, featuring Montreal Canadiens games on Saturday evenings in French.
Due to the disruption of the 2004–2005 season (caused by a labour dispute), CBC needed to replace the dense hockey schedule with alternative programming. They chose to run a series of feature films; this schedule has been officially titled Movie Night in Canada.
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