Outrage erupts over NHL's scheduling for this upcoming week
Photo credit: Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs
The 2025-26 NHL season is underway, as Gary Bettman and the league couldn't help but foul up their own product with the Vegas Golden Knights and San Jose Sharks stealing the show, but that isn't the whole story.
The NHL is the best at sabotaging its own product. From ads on helmets, jerseys, and on the ice, there's always an innovative way to bring in cash, much to the dismay of fans everywhere.
However, one common complaint of fans often is the league's inability to have a sensible TV schedule. As the season kicks into gear, we experienced another flurry of games in one night, thanks to the erratic scheduling practices of the league.
There'll be no games tonight, but there will be a full schedule of game on Saturday, and only one on Sunday.
Peak NHL Scheduling Is Back for the 2025-26 Season
Fans and fantasy league hockey players are undoubtedly going through the painful realization that this scheduling issue hasn't gotten better in recent years, only worse.
«Peak NHL scheduling is back!» says one fan.
«Truly baffling how bad they are scheduling I don't understand. Bettman loves sabotaging his own product,» answered another.
«Truly baffling how bad they are scheduling I don't understand. Bettman loves sabotaging his own product,» answered another.
Fans are expressing their frustration all over social media. However, we feel that pain immensely; one has to see it from their perspective.
Since they've atomized the product onto different apps, making the games not so easy to access, they figured a full schedule won't be burdensome to fans, as they never had the means to see them all anyway. At least from how I see it.
NHL Insider Pierre LeBrun would comment on the chaotic scheduling of the league:
"No NHL games tonight. Between 28 teams playing last night and all 32 teams playing Saturday, Friday got squeezed. Not ideal obviously," he wrote on X.
The NHL needs to figure out how to make the games more accessible and clean up this practice of scheduling every game all in one night. Until then ,the quality of the product continues to decline, along with engagement.
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