Radio: The Canadian stays at 98.5 FM for the long term

Field hockey fans who want to listen to Canadiens field hockey in French have two options: on TV or on the radio.

On TV, as you know, the regional rights belong to RDS, which means that games that aren’t on Saturday are played by Pierre Houde and Marc Denis.

Félix Séguin and Patrick Lalime have the Saturday games, but TVA Sports is the NHL’s partner until 2026. This includes the draft, the playoffs and everything surrounding the NHL, including the lottery, for example.

But on the radio, it’s simple: Cogeco (98.5 FM) is where it’s at. That’s where the games, via the voices of Martin McGuire and Dany Dubé (who’ve been doing it for over 20 years), are broadcast in the case of the Habs.

The station has also just announced some good news: the Habs and Cogeco have signed a long-term agreement to keep Habs games on 98.5 FM for the foreseeable future.

So much the better: the team in place is interesting. From our cars, we can visualize the game.

I don’t know what “long term” means exactly in terms of years, but it should be long enough to see McGuire describe the prowess of Lane Hutson, for example.

That’ll be something.

Presumably, the current contract was about to expire for Cogeco. We can also assume that a long-term contract means we’re talking more than two years, we agree.

I wonder how much doubt there was about a change. We’ve never heard of any problems with the contract, and it’s now May, so we’d like to think it went well. But who knows, in reality?

If Cogeco hadn’t retained its rights, BPM Sports would have been the logical choice.

At the moment, BPM Sports has the rights to broadcast the Montreal CF and the Laval Rocket. On 98.5 FM, we have the Canadiens and the Alouettes, who play in the CFL.

In gusto

– I still can’t believe Steve Dangle tweeted that. It was such a thick tweet and it’s only natural that it would cause a reaction.

Thanks for watching 🤓 https://t.co/Jq1LWKR01K

– Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) May 26, 2023

– Zach Benson: a name to watch in the draft. [TSLH]

– Good point.

– Normal.

– Baltimore is very strong.