History of The National Hockey League On United States Television - 1950s (CBS)

1950s (CBS)

See also: History of the National Hockey League (1942–1967)

CBS first broadcast National Hockey League games for four seasons from 1956–1960. CBS aired games on Saturday afternoons with Bud Palmer and Fred Cusick handling the announcing duties, initially. Palmer served as the play-by-play man while Cusick did color commentary as well as interviews for the first three seasons. In 1959–60, Cusick moved over to play-by-play while Brian McFarlane came in to do the color commentary and interviews. The pregame and intermission interviews were done on the ice, with the interviewer on skates. No playoff games were televised during this period and all broadcasts took place in one of the four American arenas at the time.

As previously mentioned, CBS covered the 1956–57 season on Saturday afternoons, starting January 5. For the next three years, they aired continued airing games a Saturday afternoons starting on November 2, 1957, October 18, 1958 and January 9, 1960.

According to Sports Illustrated, the NHL dropped CBS because the NHL owners didn't want the fledgling Players' Association to gain a financial cut of the TV deal. This was despite the fact that CBS was at least at one point, getting better ratings than NBC's NBA package from around the same period, especially in cities with NHL, minor-league, or major college (division 1 level) hockey clubs.