By Jonathan Easton

The National Hockey League (NHL) has agreed a free-to-air broadcast partnership in Germany with ProSieben Sat.1.

The deal will see one NHL game broadcast live every week this season on the media company’s ProSieben MAXX channel. In total, ProSieben MAXX will show up to 18 games from the season starting February 27 through the Stanley Cup Playoffs and Stanley Cup Final.

The live coverage will complement ProSieben’s existing NHL coverage which includes highlights of games during NFL broadcasts on ProSieben MAXX, ProSieben as well as on ran.de. Seven.One Sports.

ran.de head of sports Alexander Rösner said: “With the NHL, we’re bringing the next big US sports league to us. Not only in America and Canada is ice hockey one of the most popular sports, there is also a large fan community in German-speaking countries that is growing steadily. The reason for this is also the successful German players such as superstar and MVP 2020 Leon Draisaitl, first round pick Tim Stützle and the top goaltenders Thomas Greiss and Philipp Grubauer. After the Super Bowl and before the Stanley Cup: We’ll swap football for the puck and start #everydamnSunday with ‘ran NHL’ on ProSieben MAXX, when the NFL goes on a well-deserved break.”

In September, Sky Deutschland was announced as the primary broadcaster of the NHL in Germany. Picking up the pay TV rights that were previously held by DAZN, Sky Deutschland will broadcast 300 live matches per season, through to the 2024/25 season.