Montreal Canadiens fans won’t have to rush through dinner to catch the national anthem for tonight’s game.
Instead, the Canadiens will take to the ice at a slightly different weekday start time, when they drop the puck against the New Jersey Devils at 7:15 pm ET.
Meanwhile, their Atlantic Division rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, have been issued an even stranger start time of 6 pm ET for their Tuesday game against the Washington Capitals.
The upcoming schedule adjustments are quite significant because most Eastern time zone games usually start at 7 pm ET. But there’s a good reason for the changes.
On Tuesday, the National Hockey League is trying out a new concept called “Frozen Frenzy” for American viewers. The concept, inspired by the NFL’s RedZone channel, features all 32 teams in the league playing on the same day.
Game start times will be spread out throughout the evening, with the last game, Vegas Golden Knights vs. Philadelphia Flyers, beginning at a later-than-usual 11 pm ET.
ESPN’s Kevin Weekes and John Buccigross will host the show, giving updates on all the games. You can watch it on ESPN+ from 7 to 8 pm ET and on ESPN2 and ESPN+ from 8 pm ET to 1:30 am ET.
Unfortunately, this won’t be available for Canadian viewers as Canadian team games will be broadcast on different TSN and Sportsnet channels. For example, Canadian viewers interested in watching tonight’s Habs game can do so on RDS and TSN2.
Staggering game start times is something many hockey lovers have wanted for years as it lets them catch the most exciting moments from multiple games instead of just one.
And if the Frozen Frenzy experiment is a success, fans will likely have to get used to double-checking start times on days that their team is playing.