Blue Jackets games have a new home on cable this season. The NHL and Spectrum announced a carriage deal on Wednesday, September 23rd that puts the Blue Jackets Hockey Network on Spectrum TV, which means the largest cable provider in central Ohio will carry the team again after a summer of uncertainty. Spectrum joins Prime Video as the second confirmed way to watch, and the team says talks with other cable and satellite providers are still going.
The regular season opens Thursday, October 1st at Nationwide Arena against Buffalo, so here’s the full picture of how to watch, what it costs, and everything else you need to know.
The Blue Jackets Hockey Network
The Blue Jackets Hockey Network is the team’s own channel, produced with the NHL. It replaces FanDuel Sports Network as the local TV home for Blue Jackets games. The club announced it earlier this month. It carries every regular-season game in the team’s TV territory that isn’t an exclusive national broadcast on ABC, ESPN, ESPN+/Hulu or TNT.
The broadcast crew will carry over from last season. Steve Mears is play-by-play, Jody Shelley is the color analyst, Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre handles pre-game and post-game analysis, Brian Giesenschlag hosts and Dave Maetzold reports from ice level. Each game comes with a 30-minute pre-game show and a post-game show.
By the team’s count, 82 games will air on the network this season. Only two games will be national exclusives.
Watching on Spectrum
Spectrum customers across the Blue Jackets territory get every network game that isn’t a national exclusive. The team’s tune-in page says anyone who watched games on FanDuel Sports Network last season will get Blue Jackets games again without changing anything. Customers who didn’t have that package need Spectrum’s Select Plus tier, or one of the older Select or Preferred tiers.
The channel number is still an unknown. As of September 24th, the team hasn’t published it. Both the NHL and the Blue Jackets say channel information will be announced before the regular season starts, and the club is taking sign-ups for alerts at BlueJackets.com/TuneIn. Check that page or your Spectrum guide closer to October 1st.
“Making Blue Jackets hockey as accessible as possible for our fans is a top priority, and we are thrilled to have our games available on Spectrum,” said Cameron Scholvin, the club’s senior vice president and chief operating officer, in the announcement. “This agreement with Spectrum, as well as Prime Video for streaming customers, is an important step to ensuring our fans can easily watch Blue Jackets hockey.”
Streaming on Prime Video
Prime Video is the exclusive streaming home for the Blue Jackets Hockey Network. Fans inside the TV territory can watch on the web or through the Prime Video app on phones, tablets, streaming boxes, game consoles and smart TVs.
The Blue Jackets Hockey Network subscription on Prime Video costs $19.99 a month or $99.99 for the year. A Prime membership isn’t required.
Other cable and satellite providers
Spectrum is the only provider with a signed deal so far. The team says it’s still in talks with other cable and satellite companies and will announce them if/when they land. If you’re on DirecTV or Dish and want to know where things stand, the alert sign-up at BlueJackets.com/TuneIn is the fastest way to hear about it.
The team has also said a select number of games will air on over-the-air stations, though it hasn’t named the station or the games yet.
The national exclusives
Two games this season are national exclusives, which means the Blue Jackets Hockey Network won’t carry them and neither will Spectrum’s local feed.
- Tuesday, Nov. 10 vs. Florida, 7:30 p.m., on ESPN+, Disney+ and Hulu
- Thursday, April 8 vs. Philadelphia, 7:30 p.m., on TNT
For the Florida game you’ll need a streaming subscription to one of those three services. The Philadelphia game is on TNT, which most cable packages, including Spectrum, already include.
The Blue Jackets television territory
The NHL draws the territory, and it covers most of Ohio along with West Virginia and Kentucky. Two parts of Ohio fall outside it. One is Lucas County, which includes Toledo. The other is the stretch of counties along the eastern border with Pennsylvania. Everyone in the Columbus area is inside.
Fans outside the territory can’t use the Prime Video subscription or the Spectrum channel. The options there are the NHL’s ESPN Unlimited or ESPN Select packages, or NHL Center Ice through a cable or satellite provider.
Listening on the radio
Sports Radio 97.1 The Fan remains the flagship radio station. New this season, Steve Mears’s TV call will be simulcast on the radio.
The opener
The Blue Jackets open the regular season at home on Thursday, October 1st against the Buffalo Sabres at 7 p.m.
