''Sunday Night Hockey '' was a weekly presentation 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 that air on

NBCSN NBCSN was an American sports television television channel, channel owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It originally launched on July 1, 1995, as the Outdoor Life Network (OLN), which was dedicated t ...

on Sundays during the regular season. ''Sunday Night Hockey'' usually debuts during the second Sunday of January. The package made its debut on January 10, 2016, featuring a game between the

New Jersey Devils The New Jersey Devils are a professional sports, professional ice hockey team based in Newark, New Jersey. The Devils compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference (NHL), Eastern ...

and the

Minnesota Wild The Minnesota Wild are a professional ice hockey team based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Wild competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference and play their home games at the Xcel Ener ...

. Following the game, NBCSN premiered a weekly recap show, ''NHL Sunday Shootout'', which is a summary of the previous week's NHL action. During the

2016–17 NHL season The 2016–17 NHL season was the 100th season of operation (99th season of play) of the National Hockey League. Thirty teams were competing in an 82-game regular season from October 12, 2016, to April 9, 2017. The 2017 Stanley Cup playoffs began ...

, NBC Sports began to promote both the '' Game of the Week'' and ''Sunday Night Hockey'' broadcasts under the ''Star Sunday'' brand, focusing primarily on the NHL's star players. ''Star Sunday'' features extensive pre-game, in-game, and post-game coverage of each featured player. The first game under the new package featured the Wild visiting the

Anaheim Ducks The Anaheim Ducks are a professional ice hockey team based in Anaheim, California. The Ducks compete in the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division, and play their home games at Honda Center. ...

on January 5, 2017. The game's featured players were Minnesota's

Ryan Suter Ryan Suter (born January 21, 1985) is an American professional ice hockey defenseman for the Dallas Stars of the National Hockey League (NHL). He has previously played for the Nashville Predators and Minnesota Wild. Suter's father, Bob Suter, was ...

and Anaheim's

Ryan Kesler Ryan James Kesler (born August 31, 1984) is an American former professional ice hockey center. Selected in the first round, 23rd overall, by the Vancouver Canucks in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft, Kesler spent the first ten years of his National Hoc ...

Results

2015–16 season

2016–17 season

During the season, the ''Star Sunday'' brand made its debut. (*) Designated as a ''Star Sunday'' game.

2017–18 season

NBC resumed its special ''Star Sunday'' presentations on March 11, 2018, both as part of the ''Game of the Week'' and ''Sunday Night Hockey'' package. (*) Designated as a ''Star Sunday'' game.

2018–19 season

''Star Sunday'' returned on February 3, 2019, both as part of the ''Game of the Week'' and ''Sunday Night Hockey'' package. This will mark the first season of ''Star Sunday'' to have its presenting sponsor;

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

was the first presenting sponsor and they branded themselves as ''Star Sunday presented by AT&T''. (*) Designated as a ''Star Sunday'' game.

2019–20 season

For this season only,

Brian Boucher Brian Boucher ( ; born January 2, 1977) is an American former professional ice hockey goaltender who is a game and studio analyst on national ESPN and ABC games and also Philadelphia Flyers games on NBC Sports Philadelphia. He played 13 seasons ...

replaced

Pierre McGuire Regis Pierre McGuire (born August 8, 1961) is an American-Canadian ice hockey executive who last served as senior vice-president of player development for the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League (NHL). He previously worked as a televis ...

on the lead broadcast team with

Mike Emrick Michael "Doc" Emrick (born August 1, 1946) is an American former network television play-by-play sportscaster and commentator noted mostly for his work in ice hockey. He was the lead announcer for National Hockey League national telecasts on bot ...

and

Eddie Olczyk Edward Walter Olczyk Jr. (; born August 16, 1966) is a former center in the National Hockey League for 16 seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks, Toronto Maple Leafs, Winnipeg Jets, New York Rangers, Los Angeles Kings, and Pittsburgh Penguins. He ...

. McGuire will be reassigned to work with NBC's other broadcast teams.

2020–21 season

Due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, the start of the

2020–21 NHL season The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

has been delayed to January 13, 2021, and all teams will play a 56-game division-only schedule with the NHL temporairally realigning divisions to minimize travel as much as possible, with all seven Canadian teams playing one division due to COVID-19 cross-border travel restrictions imposed by the

Government of Canada The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown ...

. 15 different teams from all four divisions will be featured on 10 ''Sunday Night Hockey'' matchups. All four teams who competed in the conference finals of the

2020 Stanley Cup playoffs The 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs was the playoff tournament of the National Hockey League (NHL). The playoffs began on August 1, 2020, and concluded on September 28, 2020, with the Tampa Bay Lightning winning their second Stanley Cup in franchise ...

will be featured on ''Sunday Night Hockey''. Six out of the 10 ''Sunday Night Hockey'' matchups will feature a traditional Western Conference team. Unlike in previous years, a few ''Sunday Night Hockey'' games will not be exclusive and are blacked out in favor of local broadcasters.

Ratings

During its inaugural season, ''Sunday Night Hockey'' averaged 491,000 viewers over 13 games, up 28% from Sunday Night games during the

2014–15 NHL season The 2014–15 NHL season was the 98th season of operation (97th season of play) of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Los Angeles Kings became the first team to miss the playoffs after winning the Stanley Cup the previous season since the C ...

over the same number of games (384,000). NBCSN's ten-most watched games of the 2015–16 season were either ''

Wednesday Night Rivalry ''Wednesday Night Rivalry'' and ''Wednesday Night Hockey'' was the branding used for National Hockey League games that aired on NBCSN on Wednesday nights during the regular season from January 2013 to May 2021. In the 2012–13 NHL season, NBC ...

'' or ''Sunday Night Hockey'' games.

Notes

References

{{National Hockey League on national television 2016 American television series debuts 2021 American television series endings 2010s American television series 2020s American television series NHL on NBC

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

NBCSN shows