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TSN and Sportsnet are each claiming victory in NHL trade deadline ratings war

Rob Williams
Rob Williams
|
Mar 11 2025, 12:08 am
TSN and Sportsnet are each claiming victory in NHL trade deadline ratings war
Elliotte Friedman breaking a trade live on the air (Sportsnet)

There’s no greater pissing contest in Canadian television sports coverage than NHL trade deadline day.

Coverage begins well before it probably needs to on both TSN and Sportsnet, at 8 a.m. EST/5 a.m. PST, and continues on for approximately eight hours. The screen time on Elliotte Friedman’s phone proves he barely sleeps at this time of year.

That’s likely the case for other NHL insiders, as they fight tooth and nail to be the first to break trades.

So who won this year?

If you ask Sportsnet, they’ll say they won after more than a million Canadians tuned into their coverage, which included Friedman, David Amber, Kevin Bieksa, and Paul Bissonnette, among others. They claim they were Canada’s “#1 choice” for deadline coverage and that their average audience was nearly double that of TSN.

But an hour and a half after Sportsnet’s victory lap, TSN released a claim of its own. James Duthie hosted TSN’s coverage once again, which was highlighted by the network’s team of insiders in Darren Dreger, Pierre LeBrun, Chris Johnston, and Bob McKenzie.

And they say that they were victorious.

“TSN’s signature live [Trade Centre] broadcast special was the choice for Canadians on Friday, March 7,” TSN PR said on social media.

TSN says it reached 1.2 million unique Canadian viewers, which it claims was 24% more than Sportsnet.

Guess it depends how you crunch the numbers.

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