Summit Series - Broadcasting

Broadcasting

The games' broadcasts were produced by Hockey Canada, using experienced hockey commentators from Canadian television networks. In English, CBC Television (CBC) and CTV Television Network (CTV) split the coverage, with CTV carrying games one, three, five and seven, while CBC aired games two, four, six and eight. Foster Hewitt called the plays and former player Brian Conacher was the commentator for all of the games. At the request of the broadcasters, Hewitt came out of retirement to be part of the broadcast. In French, all games were broadcast on SRC and the broadcast team was Rene Lecavalier and former player Gilles Tremblay. For the eighth game, it was estimated that 16 million Canadians watched the match.

A partnership between Bobby Orr Enterprises and Harold Ballard bought the broadcast rights from Hockey Canada for $750,000. The bid, negotiated by Alan Eagleson, who, at the time, was both Orr's agent and a Hockey Canada director, outbid McLaren Advertising, producers of Hockey Night in Canada, which had offered $500,000. Ballard-Orr realized a profit on the series of $1.2 million.

The series was picked up by some U.S. television stations, such as WSNS (Channel 44) in Chicago. The telecasts of games one through four were produced by WSBK (Channel 38) in Boston and called by Bruins' announcers Fred Cusick and John Peirson.

The Soviet play-by-play was done by Nikolai Ozerov. In the style of that time, the Soviets did not televise anything during the pre-game, intermissions or post-game. During the intermission, the screen went black, with classical music playing quietly. After the games, the broadcast simply ended and Soviet television networks returned to regular programming.