Hockey Night in Canada picks the PWHL, and eight games is the audition

The most famous brand in Canadian sports just went to the PWHL, and it's the right call for both sides. It's also eight games. That's not a commitment yet. It's an audition, and the league should treat every one of those Saturdays like a playoff game.

Here's the setup. Rogers' NHL sublicensing deal with CBC ended this summer after 12 years, and Sportsnet now runs its Saturday NHL games as "Saturday Night Hockey." CBC kept the Hockey Night in Canada name. Instead of letting it sit in a drawer, it's putting the PWHL under it for the show's 90th season.

The first one is Dec. 5. The Walter Cup champion Montréal Victoire host expansion PWHL Hamilton at 7 p.m. ET. All eight broadcasts are in primetime, all feature Canadian teams, and all get a pregame and postgame show on free TV.

Why it's right

Hockey Night in Canada on a Saturday is the one slot every hockey family in the country already knows by heart. Nobody has to be talked into finding it. For a league heading into year four, that's worth more than any ad campaign.

It fixes a CBC problem too. The network owned the brand but hadn't made much ad money off the NHL broadcasts since 2013. Now it gets a league it can build a night around, with Andi Petrillo anchoring a new Saturday show, CBC Sports Primetime, starting Oct. 3.

Brianne Jenner, now in Hamilton, put it the way a player would: "As a Canadian hockey player, you grew up with Saturday night Hockey Night in Canada."

Why eight is the number to watch

Eight games is a taste. The league opens with 12 teams on Dec. 5 and 6, including four expansion clubs in Detroit, Hamilton, Las Vegas and San Jose. Every Canadian team will play far more than eight games.

So the test isn't whether the ratings are "good for women's hockey." That's the wrong frame. The test is whether they're good for a Saturday night on CBC. If they are, eight becomes a lot more next year. If the games get squeezed into short windows or bumped for curling, we'll know what the brand was worth to them.

The rest of the weekend helps. In the U.S., ION starts a Saturday Game of the Week, and its first one is San Jose's debut against Minnesota. Radio-Canada has the French-language radio rights to every Victoire game. Sunday closes with Las Vegas against Detroit, the first game between two expansion teams.

What's next

The full schedule drops Oct. 2. Watch which Canadian teams get the eight. If CBC spreads them across Montréal, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Hamilton, it's building a national show. If it's mostly Montréal and Toronto, it's renting ratings.

The W read: Hockey Night in Canada needed a league, and the PWHL needed a Saturday. Eight games is the tryout. Montréal and Hamilton take the first shift on Dec. 5, and the building should be loud.