UPDATED: November 01, 2022
With the NHL entering its second month of competition we finally have a definitive answer regarding coverage of the league in the UK
As per the following tweet back in August, NHL games would be available on Premier Sports, Viaplay as well as NHL.TV in the UK.
Viaplay
The Swedish-based company is new to the UK in terms of streaming. Back in April, I wrote about the company and what it will offer in this article:
New NHL Streaming Service for the UK from 2022
The website for the UK branch of the company went live today (November 01) and can be found here:
https://viaplay.com/gb-en/get-sport
The costs to buy directly are laid out in this graphic.
Viaplay will also be available on these television channels.
In the official press release from Viaplay, they lay out what the coverage entails plus answer some questions.
UK sports fans will be able to follow a broad range of live events on Viaplay, including all European Qualifiers for the UEFA EURO and FIFA World Cup played by the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland men’s national football teams, along with the UEFA Nations League and friendlies, until 2028. Viaplay holds a comprehensive portfolio of rights to over 1,000 UEFA international matches from across Europe, including top-ranked teams such as Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
Viaplay will also show LaLiga, Scottish Cup, Scottish League Cup and Coppa Italia football; BKT United Rugby Championship, Rugby Football League and TOP 14 rugby; NHL, IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, Champions Hockey League and Elite Ice Hockey League; CEV volleyball; KSW mixed martial arts; EHF handball; ISU figure skating and speed skating; World Athletics Continental Tour Gold and Indoor Tour; and much more.
So what does that mean regarding Premier Sports and FreeSports?
The pay-TV channels Premier Sports 1 and Premier Sports 2 will be rebranded as Viaplay Sports 1 and Viaplay Sports 2, with the free-to-air TV channel FreeSports becoming Viaplay Xtra. All channels will remain available through existing distribution partners and will continue to broadcast live sports to pubs, clubs and other commercial premises throughout the UK.
The content offering on all Premier Sports channels will be expanded to include Viaplay’s series and film line-up. Further details of the series and films available on Viaplay in the UK will be announced shortly.
Viaplay Group’s agreement to acquire Premier Sports was initially announced on 21 July but with little in the way of news since.
The full press release can be found here: https://www.viaplaygroup.com/news/news-releases/viaplay-launch-uk-1-november
ViaPlay has a Facebook UK page set up and ready to go https://www.facebook.com/ViaplayUK
The Twitter account can be found at @ViaplaySportsUK
If you are an existing Premier Sports subscriber, VP should have reached out to you to confirm the upcoming changes. My expectation is that all packages and subscriptions are to be honoured, including the deals promoted to watch hockey.
NHL TV
If you head over to https://nhltv.nhl.com/en-int/page/home , sign into your account and click on ‘add a subscription, you’ll see that two packages are available for the season.
£99 for the season or £14.99 per month.
There is very little other information but there are tabs under ‘more’ for features and support.
Blackouts still apply but as before some games might be shown live when available on ViaPlay.
A new set-up for subscriptions also means that the NHL app on individual platforms will also change, something I’ve been alerted to by a few people via Twitter (thank you, everyone).
You may need to delete the old app and download a newer app.
Actually purchasing a subscription has been problematic for many at the time of writing.
I have had two people reach out to me saying that the company in charge of credit card payments has declined their credit card.
If you then opt to pay with PayPal (the only second option) the charge increases from £99 to £107.99 for the season subscription.
There is also the mystery of the coupon option, indicated with a red asterisk. Could this be anything to do with VP? Your guess is as good as mine
This season I’ve seen many tweets regarding poor coverage through NHL TV.
Whether it’s the stream going down, jumping – so goals or big moments are missed, or being logged out at any given moment. You only have to put @NHLTVSupport into a Twitter search to find many people struggling with a variety of issues.
The biggest gripe is that NHL TV support provides no support, no updates, acceptance of issues or help to subscribers with the service.
In past articles, I have broken down what is being offered in terms of coverage and offered an opinion.
This article shall be a ‘work in progress as details slowly filter through from the relevant parties and the quality of coverage that is provided.
Information is power, so if you happen to stumble upon any announcements or even rumours, please feel free to drop a comment or contact me through Twitter or Facebook. I’ll be happy to credit you as my only intent is to inform UK fans through this article.
I shall update as and when further details become available, posting the date at the head of the article when any additions are available.
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UK Hockey Blog 
My understanding is that Viaplay acquired PS in July this year for around £30m.
Viaplay streaming service to start in UK in November.
Will be good to see the back of PS as they have been BS.
Hopefully Viaplay will be able to treat this great sport with the respect in deserves in the UK. I will be signing up, if only to see my team the Coyotes play in the smallest arena ever and finish way way way down the standings…..again!
With the potential reward of Connor Bedard at the end of it!
Found this super helpful, thank you!! Been trying to find the answer online myself and hitting “more info to come later” is just frustrating.
Ah thanks for this. I was getting worried that I still haven’t seen anything even though preseason has now started.
Hopefully nhl tv will fire up. More than happy to pay for it as it just works. Fingers crossed.
Hopefully you’ve seen that the NHL are offering a similar subscription service like the previous years – $99 (plus additional fees) for an annual subscription.
You need to use the new NHL TV app though…
The NHL TV app is available to download from the Play store (in my case) and does not contain some of the basic functionality that the previous NHL app offered. I’ve wrote a 1 star review for it and emailed the developers. It’s terrible.
Not sure how you all consume your NHL but I tend to watch 75% of my games on my mobile phone, the rest are Chromecasted or streamed on a browser on a PC.
(Phi Flyers & Cov Blaze fan)
Possibly useful information – I emailed Viaplay asking about availability of NHL games on the platform and got this reply
“You will be able to watch all games live and after the game has ended, be able to watch them as catch up. This is available from the end of the game and till 48 hours after the intial game start.
I.e. if the game was live 3am on a Friday morning you will have till 3am the following Sunday morning.”
All this info is incredibly useful, thanks all. I may have missed it somewhere, but I take it that Viaplay games aren’t subject to any TV blackouts? I haven’t renewed my NHL.TV subscription because the blackout does my head in, especially when the playoff games start