A Review Of The Canucks' First Game On Prime Monday Night Hockey

The Vancouver Canucks took part in their first installment of Prime Monday Night Hockey on December 23, beating the San Jose Sharks 4-3. Towards the beginning of the regular season, it was announced that the Canucks would be featured on four broadcasts streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime. Now that their first game on Prime has concluded, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of the new broadcast format.

Off the bat, Prime differentiated itself from Sportsnet by broadcasting parts of the pregame warmups. It veered from the typical route of game previews or analysis and instead chose to let the pregame routines and rituals set the stage for the Monday night matchup. Prime also included more behind-the-scenes footage, giving a much more immersive game-day experience.

With this being a Prime broadcast, familiar faces and voices were absent for the night. Instead, interviews were conducted by Shane Hnidy, while Detroit Red Wings play-by-play man Ken Daniels called the game.

As I watched the game, I found that the quality of the stream was a lot clearer than that of some other broadcasters. Having all of the footage available after the game ended was great, too. The extra graphics and video clips dispersed throughout the pregame shows were also a nice touch, as they provided something different from the usual Canucks YouTube feature.

Latest From THN's Vancouver Canucks Site:

Canucks Prospects At The 2025 World Juniors Update: December 23

The Weekly Rewind: Vancouver Canucks Recaps From December 16 to 22

Canucks World Juniors Throwback 5: Canada

The intermission shows were where Prime made a difference. All of the panel segments with Andi Petrillo and Blake Bolden were filmed in a section of Rogers Arena accessible directly from the concourse — the Legends Locker room. It was a nice touch seeing the panel desk in a spot where fans could come and interact, and this was especially notable when a “go Canucks go!” chant broke out in the middle of the second intermission. During the first break, Canucks legend Stan Smyl joined Petrillo and Bolden. The broadcast also included features on North Vancouver’s rising stars Connor Bedard and Macklin Celebrini.

Fans were divided regarding their opinions on the broadcast, with some claiming that their video and audio feeds were glitchy. However, others praised the change, specifically pointing out the approaches towards intermissions. In general, streams were reported to be of very poor quality, or much clearer than the Sportsnet and TSN feeds.

In my experience, the Prime broadcast gave a crisper picture of the game, but I did miss the trademark voice of John Shorthouse. Also, when watching the recording after the live broadcast, I found that fast-forwarding and rewinding took a lot longer than it would have if I’d pre-recorded a Sportsnet stream. Sometimes, it would take the stream longer to load than it would to rewind a couple of minutes.

Vancouver will appear on Prime Monday Night Hockey three more times this season: on January 6 against the Montréal Canadiens, January 27 against the St. Louis Blues, and March 24 against the New Jersey Devils.