Sportsnet reveals Canucks TV schedule but still no word on radio rights

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The Vancouver Canucks’ Sportsnet Pacific regional broadcast with John Shorthouse and John Garrett will cover 56 games this season.

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The other 26 games will show up on Hockey Night in Canada or another of Sportsnet’s national broadcasts. (You can view the entire TV schedule here.)

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But where audio listeners can tune remains a mystery.

Sportsnet announced their broadcast plans for the upcoming season on Thursday, revealing the regional TV schedules for the four Canadian teams — the Canucks, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs — to which they hold regional broadcast rights.

In the announcement, they also noted the radio schedules for the two other Canadian teams they have rights to — the Calgary Flames (for 82 games) and the Toronto Maple Leafs (for 41 games).

There was no mention of the Canucks.

There has been plenty of speculation about how the Canucks’ audio broadcasts will be delivered to fans in 2022-23. Sportsnet 650 has held the rights for the past five seasons and while there was belief months ago the radio station and the Canucks were set to renew their deal, they have yet to make any announcement.

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Notably, 650’s coverage of the team is progressing as if they will still be broadcasting games this season, even if there hasn’t been an official announcement.

The lack of announcement is curious, though there are other deals between Rogers and the Canucks that are now in the frame. The regional TV rights deal is up at the end of this coming season. And so is the arena naming deal.

Rogers first picked up the naming rights to Rogers Arena in 2010, on a 10-year contract. But when the regional TV deal was renewed in 2013, on a 10-year extension, the arena deal was quietly extended as well, a source involved in the negotiations at the time confirmed to Postmedia.

And so we wonder, is there a bigger package in the works?

pjohnston@postmedia.com

twitter.com/risingaction

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