How Kevin Bieksa Taught HNIC To Laugh At Itself

Like Ozymandias lying stolidly in the windswept desert for centuries, Hockey Night In Canada has endured. Okay, maybe not that long. But it seems like the format, the tone, the zeitgeist of the program has been locked in for as long as memory serves.

That tone was serious, sombre, even a touch grim. As the technology of the show soared and danced, the editorial drift was rooted on the spot. Levity? Humour? Irony? Nope. In part, this was due to the lengthy reign of Don Cherry and Ron Maclean over the editorial. It was Grandpa Simpson’s fierce-old-man-cursing-clouds leavened with a highly-sentimental-pensioner. 

If there were any levity it escaped our attention. But there is evidence that with Cherry gone and Maclean playing Goodbye Mr. Chips that a sea change is occurring on at least two fronts. One is the emergence of former Canuck Kevin Bieksa as the new tone-setter of the editorial. The other is the embrace of betting on the show.

Bieksa— whom Cherry always malapropped as Bieska— was a good quote for years in the dressing rooms of the Canucks and Ducks. Among the many gems that filled reporters’ notebooks was this one on the sex appeal of the Sedins: “Two good looking red heads with goatees, how can you resist?”

But as we’ve seen too often to count, locker-room wit can melt like the snow under the hot lights of TV. Yet Bieksa has been a moveable feast. His insouciance with media has become his ragging on the fellow panelists during intermissions that used to be as much fun as skating in July. (Wait, they’re doing that this year!)

In particular, Bieksa’s ongoing banter over reporter Elliotte Friedman’s garish wardrobe and hockey experience are must-watch. (Friedman gets in his own shots.) What he says is rarely as important as how he says it. Lippy, sarcastic, sardonic, disruptive. 

Bieksa told Lisa Dillman of The Athletic that his inexperience might be a bonus. “I feel like I came out of the gate, raw and almost naïve to everything, but I thought that really helped me. I don’t know if that makes any sense… You don’t get sucked into the everyday lingo and what other people are doing. ”

The former Canuck is also good on the whiteboard stuff, although the panels have others who can talk shop. He talks the Cherry Code of honour without any of the accompanying blood lust. Sunday he was on point showing how the Rangers lulled Tampa’s Alex Killorn into cheating in the defensive zone, leading to a New York goal.  

There’s no going back since Bieksa joined the crew in 2020. The younger iteration of the crew has moved it into less formal territory. HNIC is no longer a church, it’s a supper club.  Bieksa is now the must-watch for his hockey insight, but even more so for his “what will he say now?” quality.

The other altering change on HNIC has been its embrace of betting. As we’ve written numerous times, sports wagering is the temptation that has finally had its way with pro sports. For over a hundred years betting was the poison that haunted sports. With the integrity of the event in question, there could be no hint of tainting games. 

But after all this time, repressing sports betting did not prevent the growth of the industry. The online global betting industry began encroaching on the property of the sports leagues, earning them nothing from their own product. Governments responded with ponderous betting schemes such as ProLine where bettors had to go in person to stores and outlets. 

With the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2018 allowing regulated sports betting in states, the lid was off on social media betting. In Canada, Ontario finally legalized online online betting in 2021, opening the door for co-operation between media and casinos/ online sites.

And so betting has come to HNIC. To say that traditionalists hate the segments on the show is understating it. Former HNIC host Dave Hodge summed up the disdain: “Tonight from Edmonton, "that" HNIC "intermission feature" will remind us that every Canadian kid should dream of placing a winning bet on a Stanley Cup playoff game.” Ouch.

Editorial Note: We have long been advocating for the integration of legalized betting with sports broadcasts. Lord knows we could do with fewer vapid interviews and more content that affects the viewer. In time, betting will fill that gap.

But for now, the broadcasters haven’t a clue how to make the content interesting. It;’s like the old beer ads where they weren’t allowed to show a bottle or people drinking. Somewhere between glassy-eyed analytics nerds and flashy Nathan Detroit characters lies a formula for acknowledging the reality of betting and making it palatable. Maybe even fun.

The current attempts are closer to community cable than network TV. It may take a breakthrough star to show HNIC and other sports broadcasts the future of their marriage to the betting industry. 

To those who say it encourages the addictive lure of betting— yes, it does. But HNIC and other sports broadcasters have been flogging alcohol for decades. And not many things are more addictive than alcohol. Betting isn’t going away. It remains for the networks to find a palatable format that reflects that reality. 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx