The National Hockey League has never fared as well on American television in comparison to the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, or the National Football League, although that has begun to change, with NBC's broadcasts of the final games of the 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2013 Stanley Cup Final scoring some of the best ratings ever enjoyed by the sport on American television.

In fact, hockey broadcasting on a national scale was spotty prior to 1981; NBC and CBS held rights at various times, each network carrying weekend-afternoon games during the second half of the regular season and the playoffs, along with some (but not all) of the Stanley Cup Final. From 1971 to 1995, there was no exclusive coverage of games in the United States.

Meanwhile, individual teams have long contracted to air their games on local channels, primarily on regional sports networks and in a few cases on broadcast channels as well.

1950s (CBS)

CBS first broadcast Saturday afternoon National Hockey League games for four seasons from –. Initially, Bud Palmer served as the play-by-play man while Fred Cusick did color commentary and intermission interviews for the first three seasons. In , Cusick moved over to play-by-play while Brian McFarlane came in to do the color commentary and intermission interviews. The pregame and intermission interviews were done on the ice, with the interviewer on skates. No playoff games were televised during this period, and all broadcasts took place in one of the four American arenas at the time.

As previously mentioned, CBS covered the season on Saturday afternoons, starting January 5. For the next three years, they aired games on Saturday afternoons starting on November 2, 1957, October 18, 1958, and January 9, 1960.

According to Sports Illustrated, the NHL dropped CBS because the NHL owners didn't want the fledgling Players' Association to gain a financial cut of the television deal. This was despite the fact that CBS was at least at one point, getting better ratings than NBC's NBA package from around the same period, especially in cities with NHL, minor-league, or major college (division 1 level) hockey clubs.

1960s

1966 (NBC and RKO General)

The NHL did not return to national television in the United States until the 1966 playoffs.

NBC was the first United States television network to air a national broadcast of a Stanley Cup Playoff game. They provided coverage of four Sunday afternoon playoff games during the 1966 postseason. On April 10 and April 17, NBC aired semifinal games between the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings. On April 24 and May 1, NBC aired games one and four of the Stanley Cup Final between the Montreal Canadiens and the Detroit Red Wings respectively. Win Elliot served as the play-by-play man while Bill Mazer served as the color commentator for all four games.

NBC's coverage of the 1966 Stanley Cup Playoffs marked the first time that hockey games were televised on network television in color, although a handful of local game telecasts in Boston (WHDH-TV), New York (WOR-TV), and Chicago (WGN-TV) had been colorcast during the regular-season that year. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation would follow suit the following year. NBC's Stanley Cup coverage preempted a sports anthology series called NBC Sports in Action hosted by Jim Simpson and Bill Cullen, who were between-periods co-hosts for the four Stanley Cup broadcasts.

In the United States, the clinching game of the 1966 Stanley Cup Final on the Thursday evening of May 5 aired in black and white on RKO General-owned stations (including WOR-TV in New York and WNAC-TV in Boston). The commentators for RKO's coverage on that occasion were Bob Wolff and Emile Francis, who had called WOR-TV's coverage of New York Rangers games during the regular season.

CBS had gained rights for an NHL "Game Of The Week" for the 1966–67 regular-season; but could not accommodate regular-season games, so instead, those Sunday-afternoon games were subleased to RKO General.

1966–69 (CBS)

In 1967, CBS carried weekend-afternoon games of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. For the next five seasons, from 1968 through 1972, CBS aired a game each week between mid-January until early-mid May in each of those seasons, mainly on a Sunday afternoon, including playoffs. From 1968 to 1969 through 1971–72, the intermission studio was called "CBS Control", as was the case with other sports coverage, including the NFL coverage.

CBS started their weekly 1967–68 coverage with the opening game (the Philadelphia Flyers vs. Los Angeles Kings) at the Forum in Inglewood, California on December 30. Then after three more Saturday afternoons (because the network was tied-up with pro football on Sundays), CBS switched to Sunday afternoons beginning on January 28 for the next 10 weeks. Due to an AFTRA strike (which resulted in the cancellation of a New York Rangers-Montreal broadcast), CBS started their playoff coverage with a CBC tape of the previous night's Boston-Montreal game. On April 13, CBS started their three-week-long weekend afternoon Stanley Cup coverage. The last game of the series was St. Louis-Montreal on May 11. For the playoffs, Jim Gordon worked play-by-play and Stu Nahan worked color and intermission interviews. During the regular season, the pair alternated roles each week.

In the 1968–69 season, CBS broadcast 13 regular season afternoon games and five Stanley Cup playoff games. Dan Kelly did play-by-play while Bill Mazer did color and intermission interviews. Kelly had become the radio voice of the St. Louis Blues, whose games were covered by CBS-owned KMOX St. Louis; thus, Kelly was already part of CBS through his being on KMOX's payroll.

1970s

1971–72 The same pattern continued through the 1971–72 season for CBS. CBS did manage to televise the 1971 Stanley Cup Final clincher on a Tuesday night and the 1972 Stanley Cup Final clincher on a Thursday night. In 1971, CBS originally had not planned to broadcast game seven of the Stanley Cup Final but showed the prime time contest between the Montreal Canadiens and Chicago Black Hawks almost as a public service after thousands of calls flooded network switchboards. While Dan Kelly once again did all the play-by-play work, Jim Gordon replaced Bill Mazer in 1970–71. For the CBS' Stanley Cup Final coverage during this period, a third voice was added to the booth (Phil Esposito in 1971 and Harry Howell in 1972).

1972–75 (NBC) From 1972–1975, NBC not only televised the Stanley Cup Final (in actuality, a couple of games in prime time), but also weekly regular season games on Sunday afternoons. NBC also aired several regular season and playoff games in prime time during this period (namely, during the 1972–1973 season). Tim Ryan and Ted Lindsay (with Brian McFarlane as the intermission host) served as the commentators for NBC's NHL coverage during this period. Since most NHL teams still didn't have players' names on the backs of jerseys, NBC persuaded NHL commissioner Clarence Campbell to make teams put on players' names on NBC telecasts beginning with the 1973–74 season to help viewers identify players.

NBC's NHL coverage during the 1970s introduced the animated character Peter Puck as a between-periods feature. Peter Puck, whose cartoon adventures (produced by Hanna-Barbera) appeared on both NBC's Hockey Game of the Week and CBC's Hockey Night in Canada, explained hockey rules to the home viewing audience.

Besides Peter Puck, the 1970s version of The NHL on NBC had a between periods feature titled Showdown. The concept of Showdown involved with 20 (16 shooters and four goaltenders) of the NHL's greatest players going head-to-head in a taped penalty shot competition. After the NHL left NBC in 1975, Showdown continued to be seen on Hockey Night in Canada and local television broadcasts of U.S.-based NHL teams.

Meanwhile, HBO's first sports broadcast was of a New York Rangers / Vancouver Canucks game, transmitted to a CATV system in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania on November 8, 1972.

1975–79 (The NHL Network, CBS, and USA Network) After being dropped by NBC after the 1974–75 season, the NHL had no national network television contract in the United States. So in response to this, the league decided to launch the first version of the NHL network, which was a network of independent stations that covered approximately 55% of the country.

During the 1975–76 season, this package consisted of four exhibition games between NHL clubs and the Soviet national hockey team, then playoff games including the Stanley Cup Final.

Beginning with the 1976–77 season, games typically aired on Monday nights (beginning at 8 p.m. ET) or Saturday afternoons. The package was offered to local stations free of charge. Profits would be derived from the advertising, which was about evenly split between the network and the local station. The Monday night games were often billed as The NHL Game of the Week. The league hoped that the habit millions of viewers had of watching sports on Monday nights during the National Football League season would carry over to hockey in winter. Since ABC, which at that time carried Monday Night Football would also carry Monday-night Major League Baseball games during the 1976 season, the league tried to market this package to ABC affiliates in the hopes they'd pick it up and establish a year-round sports franchise on Monday nights. However, not very many stations picked up the package, and only a couple were ABC affiliates.

During the 1975–76 season, the NHL Network showed selected games from the NHL Super Series as well as some playoff games. During the 1976–77 season, the NHL Network showed 12 regular season games on Monday nights plus the All-Star Game. By 1978–79 (the final season of the NHL Network's existence), there would be 18 Monday night games and 12 Saturday afternoon games covered.

The 1979 Challenge Cup replaced the All-Star Game. It was a best of three series between the NHL All-Stars against the Soviet Union national squad. In the United States, parts of Game 2, which was on a Saturday afternoon, were shown on CBS as part of The CBS Sports Spectacular, sandwiched in between a track meet, a welterweight boxing match, and women's surfing. The NHL had sold advertising on the boards at Madison Square Garden, which CBS asked the league to remove. When the league refused, CBS directed their cameras to not show the far side boards. As a result, CBS viewers were unable to see the far boards above the yellow kickplate, and when players were on that side, only their skates were visible; the rest of their bodies were cropped out from the picture.

In 1979, ABC was contracted to televise game seven of Stanley Cup Final. Since the Finals ended in five games, the contract was void.

In 1979–80, the National Hockey League replaced their syndicated coverage package with a package on USA. At the time, the USA Network was called UA-Columbia. As the immediate forerunner for the USA Network, UA-Columbia, served as the cable syndicated arm of the Madison Square Garden Network in New York, PRISM channel in Philadelphia, and whatever pay/cable outlets were around in 1979. USA's coverage begin as a Monday night series with Dan Kelly doing play-by-play alongside a variety of commentators including Pete Stemkowski, Lou Nanne and Brian McFarlane. Meanwhile, Scott Wahle was the intermission host on most games.

1980s

1980 (CBS)