The network first broadcast NHL games during the 1993 Stanley Cup playoffs on April 18, 1993, under a two-year time-buy agreement with ESPN.

[1] After the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals, the NHL left ABC again, this time for NBC because Disney executives admitted that they overpaid for the 1999–2004 deal.

On March 10, 2021, ESPN announced a new contract to hold half of the NHL's media rights beginning in the 2021–22 season.

[8][9][10] Games typically aired on Monday nights[11] (beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern Time) or Saturday afternoons.

[16] Had there been a seventh game, then Al Michaels would have called play-by-play alongside Bobby Clarke (color commentator).

Jim McKay would host the seventh game in the studio and Frank Gifford (reporter) 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).

This would give Michaels the honor of being the first to provide the play-by-play in four of the five major professional sports, having called the Super Bowl, the World Series, and NBA Finals.

Four years later, for ABC's final Winter Olympics, Eruzione was this time paired with Jiggs McDonald.

In 1989,[21] the NHL signed a two-year contract (lasting through the 1990–91 season) with ABC Radio for the broadcast rights to the All-Star Game and Stanley Cup Finals.

[22][23] ABC Radio named Don Chevrier and Phil Esposito as their main commentating crew.

[51][52] In other words, ABC would sell three-hour blocks of airtime to ESPN,[53] who in return, would produce and distribute the telecasts.

In the interval between the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals and the start of the 2005–06 season, several ABC affiliates, including WDTN in Dayton, Ohio (a secondary market for the Columbus Blue Jackets) and WAND in Springfield, Illinois (which is served by the Chicago Blackhawks and the St. Louis Blues), switched to NBC (in WDTN's case, they returned to the network after 24 years away).

As previously mentioned, ABC televised four to five weeks' worth of regional games on Saturday afternoons,[140] typically beginning in January or March for the first two seasons.

In the league's previous broadcast television deal with Fox, the network split coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals with ESPN.

Gary Thorne mentioned this the following night, and thanked Nessler for promoting ABC's broadcast of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Disney executives later conceded that they overpaid for the 1999–2004 deal, so the company's offer to renew the television rights was lower in 2004.

Congratulations to the Tampa Bay Lightning!ABC concluded their coverage of Game 7 with a montage of highlights from the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals that were set to the song "Shine" by Andy Stochansky.

[269][270][271][272][273][274][275][276] At least 25 regular-season games will be scheduled to air on ESPN or ABC, along with half of the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and one conference final each year.

ABC's first game back featured the New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins in the annual Thanksgiving Showdown on November 26, 2021.

However, ABC aired a full 30-minute pregame show on April 23, as a lead-out of their Bundesliga soccer coverage.

ET, allowing for a short pre-game show before puck drop; this is in contrast to the NBA Finals, which had historically preferred a later, 9 p.m.

[292][293] As part of ESPN's new deal, ABC also gained rights to part of half of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and exclusive rights to the entire Stanley Cup Finals in even-numbered years, the first time the entire series will air on broadcast television since 1980, with games prominently airing on weekends.

However, in 2022, ABC did not air any early-round playoff games on network television, including the Eastern Conference Finals.