The National Hockey League Game of the Week is a branding used for regular season National Hockey League weekend games that are typically televised on a national broadcast network in the U.S.
The branding was previously used by NBC on Sunday afternoons, beginning at the weekend of the NFL Conference Championship games when it held NHL broadcast rights between the 2005–06 and 2020–21 seasons. During the 2016–17, NBC began to promote the Star Sunday brand on both the Game of the Week and its Sunday Night Hockey broadcasts on sister cable network NBCSN, focusing primarily on the NHL's star players. Star Sunday featured extensive pre-game, in-game and post-game coverage of each featured player. The first game under the new package featured the New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings on January 22, 2017, with Ryan McDonagh and Dylan Larkin the featured players of their respective teams.
Beginning with the 2021-22 season, ABC replaced NBC as the league's network broadcast partner. Since then, ABC has typically aired one game per weekend, usually on Saturday afternoons, beginning in February. Due to the current arrangement of ABC's sports programming being produced and co-branded by ESPN, the broadcasts carry the NHL on ESPN production and branding.
History
Historically, there was game of the week broadcasts in the past but until NBC Sports took over broadcasting rights to the National Hockey League from ESPN and ABC they were never consistent.
NHL on NBC era
Starting in , the most important games on primarily Sundays or Thursdays would be titled NHL on NBC Game of the Week which eventually got moved to only Sundays later that season.
Then as a part of the deal made between NBC and the NHL in , the game of the week package would add the NHL Thanksgiving Showdown to its schedule and this would continue until the 2020-21 season.
ESPN/ABC takes over
In March 2021, after nearly 20 years away, ESPN announced it had reacquired broadcasting rights to the NHL and as a part of that deal ABC would take over rights to air the game of the week package.
ABC Hockey Saturday as is would be called would debut on November 26, 2021
with the Thanksgiving Showdown between the New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins.
ABC’s game of the week coverage consists of mostly of either doubleheaders or tripleheaders from Saturday afternoon to night which usually begins at the last weeks of the season which starts with a 30-minute pregame show.
Schedules
2000s
2006–07 season
2007–08 season
Starting this season, NBC aired these Game of the Week games on a national basis, in addition to carrying the national broadcasts of the Winter Classic on New Year's Day and the Stanley Cup Playoffs during the Spring.
2008–09 season
2010s
2009–10 season
2010–11 season
2011–12 season
The Pittsburgh Penguins had an overall five network TV appearances during this season, making it the first NHL team in Pennsylvania and the first NHL team to have overall five network appearances in a regular season.
2012–13 season
2013–14 season
2014–15 season
2015–16 season
NBC was supposed to air the Pittsburgh-Washington match-up on January 24, but however, the game was postponed due to hazardous weather, so the network instead selecting St. Louis-Chicago game as their match-up and it aired in the Primetime slot.
2016–17 season
During the season, NBC's Star Sunday concept was added to the Game of the Week package. The first game under the new brand took place on January 22, 2017, in a game between the New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings.
(*) Designated as a Star Sunday game.
2017–18 season
During this season, the Philadelphia Flyers had an overall five network TV appearances, making it the final NHL team in Pennsylvania and the second NHL team to have overall five network appearances (the first was Pittsburgh Penguins in 2011–12 season). NBC initially announced that no NHL games would be aired on the network during the 2018 Winter Olympics, however they changed course and added three Sunday afternoon games in February as a lead-in to the Winter Olympics, allowing Mike Emrick and Eddie Olczyk to stay home and call 3 NHL games. NBC correctly switched the final minutes of the 2018 NHL Stadium Series to its sister network NBCSN (except for viewers in the Washington D.C. market) at 11 p.m. Eastern Time after play stoppage due to the power outage delay. Star Sunday returned on March 11, 2018, both as part of the Game of the Week and Sunday Night Hockey package.
(*) Designated as a Star Sunday game.