During the 1979–80 and 1980–81 seasons, four more Canadian teams, the Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets, and Calgary Flames, joined the NHL. The Oilers and Flames were featured frequently as the two teams were contenders the 1980s; in contrast, as the Nordiques were owned by Carling-O'Keefe, a rival to the show's sponsor Molson and whose English-speaking fanbase was very small (being located in a near-exclusively Francophone area of Quebec), the Nords were rarely broadcast, and never from Quebec City during the regular-season.
After Wayne Gretzky was traded to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988, the network began showing occasional double-headers when Canadian teams visited Los Angeles to showcase the sport's most popular player. These games were often joined-in-progress, as the regular start time for HNIC was still 8 p.m. Eastern Time, and the Kings home games began at 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time (10:30 Eastern). Beginning in the 1994–95 season, weekly double-headers became the norm, with games starting at 7:30 Eastern and 7:30 Pacific, respectively. In 1998, the start times were moved ahead to 7 p.m. ET and PT.
In the U.S., the USA Network continued to be the national rightsholder for the 1980–81 and 1981–82 seasons, while ESPN made deals with a selected number of individual teams to air their games during that period. In 1982, USA outbid ESPN for the NHL's American national television cable package. The rights were then passed on to ESPN in 1985 before SportsChannel America took over in 1988.
Year-by-year breakdown 1980 In , the National Hockey League replaced their syndicated coverage package The NHL Network with a package on USA. At the time, the USA Network was called UA-Columbia. As the immediate forerunner for the USA Network, UA-Columbia, served as the cable syndicated arm of not only MSG Network in New York, but also PRISM channel in Philadelphia, and whatever pay/cable outlets were around in 1979.
USA's coverage began as a Monday night series with Dan Kelly doing play-by-play alongside a variety of commentators including Pete Stemkowski, Lou Nanne and Brian McFarlane. Scott Wahle was the intermission host.
ESPN initially covered the NHL during the , and seasons by making deals with individual teams. This included eleven Hartford Whalers home broadcasts in 1980–81 and 25 the following year. During this time, USA also broadcast National Hockey League games. In order to prevent overexposure, the NHL decided to grant only one network exclusive rights. In April 1982, USA outbid ESPN for the NHL's American national television cable package ($8 million for two years).
The independent Hughes Television Network broadcast National Hockey League games aired under the title The NHL '80. Hughes broadcast Thursday night games, the All-Star Game, some playoff games, and games 1-5 of the Stanley Cup Final. Hughes technically, used CBC's Hockey Night in Canada feeds for the American coverage of the first five games of the Stanley Cup Final. The first broadcast involved the Atlanta Flames against the Chicago Blackhawks on January 25.
On April 9, 1980, CBC carried the ACTRA awards ceremony. This caused game two of Hartford-Montreal and Edmonton-Philadelphia playoff games not to be televised. Meanwhile, the Toronto-Minnesota game was shifted to CHCH in Hamilton while the Vancouver-Buffalo game was televised by CBC regionally in British Columbia as usual. The ACTRA awards show was tape-delayed into prime time on the west coast.
During the 1980 Stanley Cup Final, Bob Cole, Dan Kelly and Jim Robson shared play-by-play duties for CBC's coverage. Cole did play-by-play for the first half of games 1–2. Meanwhile, Kelly did play-by-play for half of games 1–5 (Kelly also called the overtime period of game one). Finally, Robson did play-by-play for the half of games 3–4 and game six entirely. In essence, this meant that Cole or Robson did play-by-play for the first period and the first half of the second period (except for game five in which the roles of Kelly and Robson were switched). Therefore, at the closest stoppage of play near the ten-minute mark of the second period, Cole or Robson handed off the call to Kelly for the rest of the game.
CBS only aired one other NHL game following game two of the 1979 Challenge Cup. That would take place on May 24, 1980, with Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Islanders. CBS was mainly influenced by the United States men's Olympic hockey team's surprise gold medal victory (dubbed "The Miracle on Ice") in Lake Placid several months prior. CBS agreed to pay $37 million to broadcast the sixth game. In return, the NHL happily moved the starting time from prime time to the afternoon. The Saturday afternoon game was the first full American network telecast of an NHL game since game five of the 1975 Stanley Cup Final aired on NBC. As previously mentioned, when CBS broadcast game two of the 1979 Challenge Cup, it was only seen on CBS for the third period.
Game six was won in overtime by the host Islanders, which captured the first of their four consecutive Stanley Cups. By this time, Dan Kelly was joined by former NHL on NBC commentator, Tim Ryan. Kelly did play-by-play for the first and third periods as well as overtime. Meanwhile, Tim Ryan did play-by-play only for the second period. Minnesota North Stars general manager Lou Nanne was the color commentator throughout the game.
Game six pulled a 4.4 rating on CBS. After the game ended, except for its owned-and-operated stations in New York City and Philadelphia, CBS discontinued the telecast and went to a previously scheduled golf telecast. New York and Philadelphia viewers saw a post-game show before the network joined the very end of the golf broadcast. Given that the game went into overtime, CBS cut away from hockey during the intermission between the end of regulation and the start of overtime to present ten minutes of live golf coverage, with the golf announcers repeatedly mentioning that the network would return to hockey in time for the start of sudden-death.
As previously mentioned, game six of the 1980 Stanley Cup Final turned out to be the last NHL game (to date) to be televised on CBS. It was also the last NHL game on American network television until NBC televised the 1990 All-Star Game.
1981 For the season, some Sunday night games were added. Dan Kelly once again, did most of the play-by-play alongside Mike Eruzione. Dick Carlson and Jiggs McDonald also did play-by-play work on occasion. In addition, Don Cherry was a commentator for at least one game. Meanwhile, Jim West was the host for most games.
With USA's coverage of the 1981 Stanley Cup Playoffs, it marked the first time that there was "blanket" American television coverage of the NHL playoffs. In other words, often, whenever a game was played, it was televised on a national outlet (whether it was broadcast or cable). USA however, didn't televise game one of the playoff series between Philadelphia Flyers and Calgary Flames (April 16) because they were instead broadcasting a baseball game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies. Meanwhile, they also skipped games 2–6 (on April 17, 22 and 24) of the Philadelphia–Calgary series because of their coverage of the NBA playoffs. USA also didn't televise games two and five of the playoff series between the Calgary Flames and Minnesota North Stars (April 30 and May 7 respectively) because of baseball games involving the Minnesota Twins vs. the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. the Philadelphia Phillies respectively.
1982 In the season, Al Trautwig took over as studio host. Dan Kelly did play-by-play with either Gary Green or Rod Gilbert on color commentary. For the playoffs, Dick Carlson and Al Albert were added as play-by-play voices of some games. Meanwhile, Jim Van Horne hosted Stanley Cup Final games played in Vancouver.
In April 1982, USA outbid ESPN for the NHL's American national television cable package with $8 million (at least $2 million more than what ESPN was offering).
Aside from the 1982 Stanley Cup Final, CBC's only other nationally televised postseason games (all other games were seen regionally) from that year were the April 23 Boston-Quebec game (Game 6), the April 25 Quebec-Boston game (Game 7), and the May 6 Vancouver-Chicago game (Game 5).
1983 Things pretty much remained the same for USA during the season. Dan Kelly and Gary Green called most games, while Al Albert did play-by-play on several playoff games and hosted the Stanley Cup Final from the Nassau Coliseum. USA didn't cover any playoff games on April 7, 1983, because they were broadcasting second round highlights of The Masters followed by a West Coast NBA telecast.
1984 In the season, USA covered over 40 games including the playoffs. While Gary Green did all games, Dan Kelly and Al Albert did roughly 20 games each. Meanwhile, Jiggs McDonald helped broadcast at least one game.
Because USA was airing Masters highlights, game one of the 1984 playoff series between the Minnesota North Stars and St. Louis Blues (April 12) and game two of the playoff series between the New York Islanders and Washington Capitals (April 13) were aired on tape delay at 10 p.m. Eastern Time.
1985 In the and seasons, the NHL returned to CTV, with regular season games on Friday nights (and some Sunday afternoons) as well as partial coverage of the playoffs and Stanley Cup Final.
CTV/Carling O'Keefe initially signed a contract well into the 1984–85 season. As a result, they wanted to cram as many games as possible (beginning in February) in the brief window they had. 1985-86's coverage didn't begin until November, so to avoid conflicts with CTV's coverage of the Major League Baseball postseason and the Canadian Football League.
While Molson continued to present Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday nights on the CBC, rival brewery Carling O'Keefe began airing Friday Night Hockey on CTV. This marked the first time in more than a decade that CBC was not the lone over-the-air network broadcaster of the National Hockey League in Canada.
The deal with CTV was arranged by the Quebec Nordiques (who were owned by Carling O'Keefe) and all 14 U.S.-based NHL clubs, who sought to break Molson's monopoly on NHL broadcasting in Canada. All of CTV's regular season telecasts originated from Quebec City or the United States, as Molson shut them out of the other six Canadian buildings (as Carling did to them in Quebec City).
For USA's final full season of NHL coverage in , Dan Kelly and Gary Green once again, did most games, while Al Albert and Green called the rest. In all, the USA Network covered about 55 games, including 33 in the regular season. Also, Hartford Whalers goaltender Mike Liut was added as a studio analyst for the Stanley Cup Final.
Meanwhile, for increased publicity opportunities, the Stroh Brewing Company turned to such sports as hockey—which had been overlooked by Anheuser and Miller—and sponsored broadcasts of National Hockey League games on the USA cable network.
Seldom during the early rounds of the playoffs did USA carry an away game of one of the three New York-area teams (New York Rangers, New York Islanders, or New Jersey Devils) since WOR-TV New York, at the time available on most of the nation's cable television systems, often carried that away game of the New York-area team both locally in New York and on its "superstation" feed. One exception was a playoff game between two of the New York-area clubs, since WOR was usually barred from carrying it since the home team's cable-television contract superseded the visiting club's over-the-air television deal.
In , Dan Kelly and Ron Reusch called the Philadelphia-Quebec Wales Conference Final series on CTV. They also televised Games 3, 4 and 6 of the Montréal-Québec Adams Division Final and Games 2 and 5 of the Philadelphia-New York Islanders Patrick Division Final.