Breakaway PPV was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

regional pay-per-view

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

provider in

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

and the territories. Breakaway is jointly owned by the parent companies of the

Vancouver Canucks The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division of the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference, and ...

Calgary Flames The Calgary Flames are a professional ice hockey team based in Calgary. The Flames compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division (NHL), Pacific Division in the Western Conference (NHL), Western Conference, and ...

, and

Edmonton Oilers The Edmonton Oilers are a professional ice hockey team based in Edmonton. The Oilers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. They play their home games at Rogers Place, which ...

at 33.33% each. Licensed in 2000, its sole offerings were regional pay-per-view broadcasts of

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

games involving the aforementioned teams which are not available through other broadcast or cable channels. The Breakaway name was not used on-air; the services were branded as ''Canucks TV'', ''Flames PPV'', and ''Oilers PPV'' respectively. The service has not operated since the end of the 2009–10 NHL season – beginning with the

2010-11 NHL season 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. ...

, Sportsnet secured long-term deals for the packages of Canucks, Oilers, and Flames regional broadcasts previously allocated to Breakaway, and established new regional sub-feeds carried with

Sportsnet One Sportsnet One (SN1 or SN One) is a Canadian English-language discretionary digital cable and satellite specialty channel owned by Rogers Sports & Media; it operates as a national sports channel complementing the Sportsnet group of regional sp ...

to serve as overflow channels in case of programming conflicts. Despite its dormancy, the CRTC continued to issue interim license renewals for the service through August 2013Broadcasting Decision CRTC 2011-417
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, 2011-07-12. Retrieved 2011-10-18. Breakaway was not affiliated with a similar pay-per-view package of

Ottawa Senators The Ottawa Senators (french: Sénateurs d'Ottawa), officially the Ottawa Senators Hockey Club and colloquially known as the Sens, are a professional ice hockey team based in Ottawa. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a membe ...

games, branded as "Sens TV", which was offered over roughly the same timeframe. Instead, the Senators distributed these games through the main incumbent PPV provider serving each cable or satellite provider (namely

Viewers Choice Viewers Choice was a Canadian English language pay-per-view (PPV) and near video on demand service. It was owned by Viewers Choice Canada Inc., which at the time of its closure was majority-owned and managed by Bell Media, with minority partner ...

Vu! Vu!, also operating as Bell TV On Demand, is a Canadian English and French language pay-per-view and Video on Demand provider that launched in October 1999 and is owned by Bell Media. Vu! is the largest PPV service provider in Canada and is ava ...

, or

Shaw PPV Shaw PPV is a Canadian English and French language pay-per-view service owned by Shaw Pay-Per-View Limited, a division of Shaw Communications. Shaw PPV is carried by Shaw Direct, Shaw Cable, and some other providers, mainly (but not exclusively) i ...

). It too was discontinued in favour of a deal with Sportsnet One in 2010.

References

Sports television networks in Canada Pay-per-view television networks in Canada Joint ventures National Hockey League on television 2000 establishments in Canada {{Canada-tv-station-stub

See also

References