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 put together a network of independent stations (covering approximately, 55% of the country). In cities, these games were usually, but not always, seen on the same stations that televised the local NHL team. In New York for example, while WOR-TV carried the Rangers and Islanders, it was WPIX that aired the syndicated NHL package during the 1976–77 season.
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 Finals.
Beginning with the 1976–77 season, games typically aired on Monday nights (beginning at 8:00 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.
1979's 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, Game 2, which was on a Saturday afternoon, was shown on CBS as part of The CBS Sports Spectacular. The network, the show, and their sponsors had a problem with the rink board advertising that the NHL sold at Madison Square Garden, and refused to allow them to be shown on TV. As a result, CBS viewers were unable to see the far boards above the yellow kickplate, and could only see players skates when the play moved to that side of the ice. Games 1 and 3 were shown on the NHL Network, where the advertising was no problem.
In 1979, ABC was contracted to televise Game 7 of Stanley Cup Finals. Since the Finals ended in five games, the contract was void. Had there been a seventh game, then Bob Wilson (play-by-play), Jim McKay (intermission/postgame host, under the Wide World of Sports umbrella), Bobby Clarke (color commentator) and Frank Gifford (rinkside reporter and postgame locker-room interviews) would've called it.
In 1979–80, the National Hockey League replaced their syndicated coverage package The NHL Network 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.
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