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Or sign-in if you have an account.Pedestrians walk past the CBC building in Toronto on June 7, 2006. CBC hasn’t produced Hockey Night since 2014. Photo by GEOFF ROBINS /AFP via Getty ImagesI’m generally happy to roll my eyes at pearl-clutching urban sophisticates in private. Sane National post readers don’t need me to explain why Hockey Night in Canada signing off the public airwaves for good doesn’t matter, despite all the column inches and airtime it has taken up.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an Accountor“A fundamental betrayal of what CBC is supposed to be,” wrote one columnist. “Sacrilegious,” it says in the New York Times. “A major shock. … very detrimental to Canadian culture” one observer told CBC News. “The CBC’s loss … ought to impel us to ask what we want and expect not just from our national broadcaster but from our country,” ruminates a Walrus contributor. And on and on and on.The problem is, I think all this wailing speaks to a genuinely harmful aspect of the Canadian character — or at least the pearl-clutching urban sophisticate Canadian character, and unfortunately, that character holds a lot of sway in this country.This newsletter from NP Comment tackles the topics you care about. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays)By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againMany have pointed out that CBC hasn’t produced Hockey Night since 2014. It simply plugged into Sportsnet’s broadcast. Fewer have noted that very few CBC viewers watch over the air as it stands — it was only five per cent, according to CBC, when they last reported it in 2012.So other than a weird sort of nostalgia and public broadcasting fetishism, the case for alarm, or even to notice, rests on one supposedly empirical change to the viewing experience: namely, that Hockey Night will no longer be “free.”No surprise that everyone making these arguments seems to live in an urban area — not unlike people insisting on the necessity of door-to-door mail service. For a great many Canadians, over-the-air CBC hasn’t been available for ages. In 2007, the CRTC ordered the phasing out of analog television broadcasting, requiring broadcasters to switch to digital over-the-air signals, although the CBC didn’t replace all of its coverage nationwide.“We had 620 analog TV transmitters and we simply couldn’t afford to replicate that infrastructure,” CBC explained. “It was also clear that to do so wasn’t a good use of scarce resources.”It’s not just the hinterlands where you can’t get a digital TV signal. Geographically, it’s the vast majority of the country. CBC digital broadcast towers are in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Regina (but not Saskatoon), Winnipeg, Windsor, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, Quebec City, Saguenay, Rimouski (francophone Quebecers actually watch CBC’s French-language offerings, remember), Fredericton, Moncton, Charlottetown, Halifax, St. John’s, Whitehorse and Iqaluit.Everyone outside those broadcast areas has needed cable or satellite TV service, or internet, to watch Hockey Night for 15 years.The CRTC’s rationale for phasing out analog TV spectrum was to free it up for more important things, like cellular service. No doubt spurred on by its communications department, it added another justification: digital offers a higher-quality picture. And hey, if you can get digital TV over the airwaves, while the channels are very limited even here in Toronto, the picture is indeed pristine. I have watched Hockey Night over the air because the picture is so superior to what you get from streaming.But if you’re a genuine hockey fan in 2026, HNIC wasn’t giving you what you needed anyway. Being able to watch your team play only once a week is a sort of nostalgia, I suppose, but progress is good. I don’t hear many people complaining about the explosion in brilliant scripted television over the last decades, nearly all of which has been on cable or streaming platforms.All of this would be just so much “whither Canadian culture” handwringing, but as I say, it speaks to a serious flaw in the Laurentian character: We fear change even when we understand neither the status quo nor the changes being proposed.We can’t touch supply management because American dairy is full of cooties, as if food standards don’t apply to imports as well. So we pay more for groceries.We can’t reform health care because then we would become America, and besides, all it needs is more public money. So we pay relatively a lot for health care, and receive middling-to-infuriating results in return.After many years, the case of Canada Post, which is as antiquated as CBC television received via bunny ears, might prove a welcome exception. Earlier this month, Canada Post announced 485,000 new homes that will soon lose door-to-door service. To my eyes and ears, it hardly made a splash.Among most normal people, neither will Hockey Night in Canada leaving CBC. As for the others, the ship they want sailed in the previous decade.National Post cselley@postmedia.com Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.