Toronto-based CBC and CBC Mobile Productions, headquartered mere minutes from the Senators' biggest rival, are all about Ottawa. That's because CBC serves all of Canada and, for the moment, the Sens are Canada's team.
Just don't call them one-sided.
Being a network broadcaster, when we approach a game, it's never from a home-team perspective. It's always from both teams, says Sherali Najak, senior producer, Hockey Night in Canada. We try and bring a network type of feel to every broadcast, and that means having enough cameras and enough facilities to cover both teams' stories, not missing anything, and showcase what's happening behind the plays and the whys' of the game.
CBC's Sherali Najak preps for the night's broadcast.
To cover the Round 2 series between Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators, CBC Mobile Productions' Encore A and B units are making the 500+-mile trek between the two cities.
What's been great and we're spoiled this way is that we're able to have this truck back and forth on both sides, so that helps a lot with setup, explains Najak. We use a lot of local technicians as well, but they know the way we do things, and our technical managers make sure that all the local crews are up to speed on how our distribution goes in terms of video and audio flows. We're lucky that we have good local people in both buildings, and we carry some of our own crew as well with us.
Encore, a 53-ft. expando, features a Grass Valley Kalypso switcher, SSL C100 audio console, three six-channel EVS XT2 servers, and a Chyron Hyper X3. In the last round, CBC also added an Evertz Dreamcatcher replay system to support 4K tests.
North of the border, CBC serves as the home broadcaster, and NBC takes over when the series returns stateside. While CBC focuses on storylines from both teams, it certainly doesn't hurt when a Canadian team is involved: the network posted record numbers for its first-round coverage of the Toronto-Boston series (CBC broadcast four first-round series, including every Canadian team).
For Games 3 and 4, CBC has access to nearly 30 cameras for its Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts, including manned cameras, robotic cameras, fixed POV cameras, and the Senators' own in-venue game-presentation cameras.
CBC's Glenn Weston handles any technical that may arise in Encore.
Since installing an HD video screen and upgrading production to HD prior to hosting the 2012 NHL All-Star Game, broadcasters and game presentation often share cameras. CBC, NBC Sports Network, and RDS also share cameras with each other via DT12 cabling and video hookups.
[Say] they want our Camera 2 because we're play by play. We'll feed them Camera 2, and they'll put it into their Camera 1, explains Technical Producer Glenn Weston. [Then] they'll have Camera Position B1, and we'll do the same thing with them; we'll strap to their truck and take what we want, and they'll run straps to our truck and take what they want. There's a lot of sharing going on, trying to help each other out as much as possible.
After a tough loss on Wednesday, the Ottawa Senators stand on the brink of elimination heading into tonight's Game 5 in Pittsburgh. CBC will be there and will continue to broadcast the Stanley Cup Playoffs, including the Final.
This is our 60th season [of Hockey Night in Canada], and, technically, it's grown quite a bit, says Najak. Production-wise, we try to surpass every game that we've done, and, every year, we try to bring something new to the table.
Every round, he continues, just like the teams feel the pressure, the broadcasters feel the pressure as well to outperform yourself from the last round. Not [just] adding cameras because we have what we need it's more about the usage of cameras, how we're going to use them, making sure our technology fits the stories that are outlined on the ice, making sure we don't miss anything.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Toronto-based CBC and CBC Mobile Productions, headquartered mere minutes from the Senators' biggest rival, are all about Ottawa. That's because CBC serves all of Canada and, for the moment, the Sens are Canada's team.
