Nightmare scenario hits all hockey fans living in Canada for next season

Sportsnet is owned by Rogers, which is passing higher rights fees to subscribers as the reason for the jump from $324.99 to $344.99. The explanation sounds clean, but the timeline does not cooperate.

Rogers signed a new 12-year, $11 billion National Hockey League rights deal, more than double the $5.2 billion it paid last time. That contract does not begin until the 2026-27 season this fall.

Fans already sense something is off, and one viral post captured the mood: still no Roku app, still dropped feeds, and a price that keeps climbing.

The timing is the tell. Last year's 30 percent jump, from $249.99 to $324.99, landed in September 2025, a full season before Rogers owed a single dollar on the new deal.

Subscribers paid premium prices through 2025-26 while Rogers was still under the old, half-priced contract. The 2026 increase then lands exactly as the real cost finally arrives.

So this is not one hike funding the NHL deal. It is two hikes bracketing it: margin first, then pass-through.

The comparison stings because Sportsnet+ now sits atop the market, well above TSN's $199.99 and TSN+ at $80. The second post lays the market out plainly, with Sportsnet+ topping every rival by a wide margin.

Sportsnet holds the national NHL rights, so this is bigger than a Toronto Blue Jays or a single-market story. Oilers, Canucks, Flames, Jets, Senators and Canadiens fans all pay the same toll for national broadcasts.

With no Roku app on Canada's most-used platform, the value gap widens every September.

Rogers is betting hockey fans have nowhere else to go, and for national games, they mostly don't.

Also read on House Of Hockey :
Red Wings may have found their Dylan Larkin and Patrick Kane replacement