[2] Regional television rights in French are held by Réseau des sports (RDS) under a 12-year deal that began in the 2014–15 NHL season.
[4] A sister to the English-language network TSN, RDS was the only French-language sports channel in Canada until the 2011 launch of TVA Sports,[5] and was also the previous national French rightsholder of the NHL; as a result, the Canadiens forwent a separate regional contract, and allowed all of its games to be televised nationally in French as part of RDS's overall NHL rights.
As a result, games on RDS are blacked out outside the Canadiens' home market of Quebec, Atlantic Canada and parts of Eastern Ontario shared with the Ottawa Senators.
[7][8] TSN2 assumed the English-language regional television rights in the 2017–18 season, with John Bartlett on play-by-play, and Dave Poulin, Mike Johnson and Craig Button on colour commentary.
[11][12] English-language regional rights were previously held by Sportsnet East (with Citytv Montreal as an overflow channel), under a three-year deal that expired after the 2016–17 season; the games were called by Bartlett and Jason York.
[15] Journalist Charles Mayer provided the French language commentary for radio broadcasts, and was responsible for the choice of team captain Maurice Richard as the first, second and third star of a playoffs game in which he scored five goals against the Toronto Maple Leafs on 23 March 1944.
The play-play announcers during this time period included Doug Smith (1937-55) and Danny Gallivan (1955-67) with Elmer Ferguson[17] on colour commentary from 1937 to 67.
The CBC English language radio network covered Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs Sunday night games from 1965 through 1976.
On March 16, 1966, CTV's coverage of the game between the Canadiens and Maple Leafs was frequently interrupted for news updates on the Gemini 8 space mission, which had run into serious trouble after being successfully launched that morning; when the game ended, CTV joined a simulcast of CBS News coverage in time for the capsule's re-entry and splashdown.
The analysts included Dick Irvin Jr., Mickey Redmond, Gary Dornhoefer, John Garrett, Harry Neale, Steve Shutt, Greg Millen, John Davidson, Patrick Flatley, Craig Simpson, Glenn Healy, Kelly Hrudey, Ron Tugnutt, Drew Remenda, Cassie Campbell, Garry Galley, and Marc Crawford.