NBC aired Games 1 and 4[3] of the 1966 Stanley Cup Finals between the Montreal Canadiens and the Detroit Red Wings.
For the CBS' Stanley Cup Finals coverage during this period, a third voice was added to the booth (Phil Esposito in 1971 and Harry Howell in 1972).
Tim Ryan and Ted Lindsay (with Brian McFarlane as the intermission host) served as the commentators for NBC's NHL coverage during this period.
[14][15][16] For the Stanley Cup Finals, Jiggs McDonald[17] served as the play-by-play man while Bill Clement was the color commentator for SportsChannel America.
Gary Thorne mentioned this the following night, and thanked Nessler for promoting ABC's broadcast of game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals.
[25] NBC's coverage of the 1966 Stanley Cup Finals marked the first time that hockey games were broadcast on network television in color.
Ironically, the game was not telecast by CBS' Chicago owned-and-operated station WBBM-TV, nor on CBS affiliates in most of Illinois (except areas near St. Louis), and parts of Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa, due to Blackhawks' owner Arthur M. Wirtz policy of not telecasting home games.
For the CBS' Stanley Cup Finals coverage during this period, a third voice was added to the booth (Phil Esposito in 1971 and Harry Howell in 1972).
During the 1972 Stanley Cup Finals between the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers, CBS took a rather calculated risk in not televising the Game 5 match on May 9 (CBS aired regular programming, including the original Hawaii Five-O in that time period on that Tuesday night).
[44] Had there been a Game 7, then Al Michaels would have called play-by-play alongside Jim McKay (between-periods host), Bobby Clarke (color commentator), and Frank Gifford (reporter, who would have been in the winning team's dressing room to interview players and coaches as well as hand the phone to the winning team's coach that would have allowed him to talk to both President Jimmy Carter and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau).
Mainly influenced by the United States men's Olympic hockey team's surprise gold medal victory (dubbed "The Miracle on Ice") in Lake Placid several months prior,[45] CBS agreed to pay $37 million to broadcast the sixth game of the 1980 Stanley Cup Finals.
[54] The NBC deal stipulated that the network would pay the league no rights fees - an unheard of practice to that point.
NBC's deal included six regular season windows, seven postseason broadcasts and Games 3–7 of the Stanley Cup Finals in primetime.
As part of ESPN's new deal with the NHL, which starts with the 2021–22 season, ABC will exclusively air four Stanley Cup Finals over the life of the contract (2022, 2024, 2026, and 2028).
[59] Also, Hartford Whalers goaltender Mike Liut was added as an intermission analyst for the Stanley Cup Finals.
Due to the death of a family member, NBC lead play-by-play announcer Mike Emrick missed Game 1.
In the United States, the clinching game of the 1966 Stanley Cup Finals on the evening of Thursday, May 5 aired on RKO General's stations, such as WOR-TV in New York City and WHCT in Hartford, Connecticut.
Hughes technically, used CBC's Hockey Night in Canada feeds for the American coverage of the first five games of the Stanley Cup Finals.