- Sportsnet has cancelled Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi after 18 years on the air
- Broadcasts averaged 1,500 viewers last season, with most games under 1,000
- Read below for the crew’s farewell and the Bonino call that made them famous
Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi is done.
Sportsnet has cancelled the Punjabi-language NHL broadcast after 18 years on the air, a network spokesperson told Daily Hive on Friday.
Viewership drove the decision, and the network said so plainly.
“We’ve made the difficult decision to end our Punjabi-language NHL broadcasts. While audience levels aren’t strong enough to sustain the production long-term, we know these broadcasts have meant a lot to many Punjabi-speaking hockey fans. We’re grateful to the on-air team, production staff and viewers who supported the show over the years.”
Those numbers were thin. Broadcasts averaged 1,500 viewers last season, and more than half the games drew fewer than 1,000.
Friday morning, the crew said goodbye with a shot from its Vancouver studio and four words:
The show began at CBC during the 2008 Stanley Cup Final and moved to Rogers-owned Omni in 2014 when the NHL broadcast rights changed hands. That switch handed the Vancouver crew a bigger budget.
Then came 2016. Harnarayan Singh’s call of Nick Bonino’s late winner in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final turned into “Bonino Bonino Bonino,” and the clip escaped the Punjabi broadcast entirely:
Pittsburgh flew Singh, Randip Janda, Harpreet Pandher and Bhupinder Hundal in for the Cup parade that June.
Big moments kept landing after that. When the Jets hosted South Asian night in December 2023, O Canada was sung in Punjabi for the first time in league history:
Careers came out of the booth, too. Singh moved over to the main English Hockey Night in Canada broadcast. Janda took a colour commentary job on Canucks radio.
Signing off, the team posted a statement of its own.
“For 18 years, this show brought our community closer to the game we love. It shared the stories of South Asian players and families and created a space that was truly unique in Canadian sports. We are incredibly proud of what we built together.”
Punjabi broadcasts disappear in the same offseason the show’s original home walked away from hockey, with CBC filling its Saturday nights with curling.
