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Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video will air National Hockey League playoffs in Canada in a licensing agreement with Rogers Communications Inc., its first shot at showing hockey’s premier event in a country where the sport is immensely popular.

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Amazon’s streaming service is buying exclusive rights to two first-round series and one second-round series per year, the companies announced. Prime Video will also be the only broadcaster of Wednesday night NHL games in a move away from Monday matchups, which it aired for the past two years.

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Rogers renewed its 12-year broadcasting pact with the NHL for $11 billion (US$7.8 billion) in April 2025, more than double the value of the previous 2013 agreement. The wireless firm beat analysts’ earnings expectations last week, as Rogers continues to benefit from its ownership of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.

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Canada is home to seven of the 32 teams in the NHL. The last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup was the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.

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Amazon is expanding live sports broadcasts on its platform. In 2022, it paid US$13 billion for the rights to the National Football League’s Thursday night football programming. The most recent season averaged 15.3 million viewers per game on the platform, a 16 per cent year-over-year increase. June’s National Basketball Association finals were streamed in France on Amazon Prime.

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The Rogers-Amazon agreement includes broadcasts in English and French, Canada’s official languages, for at least 26 national regular season games. Financial terms were not disclosed.

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Professional sports leagues face growing scrutiny over the rising cost of watching sports as streaming services buy up more rights — including probes from the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission.

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