Toronto Maple Leafs Prep for Special Hockey Night in Canada

The Toronto Maple Leafs, unscathed, successfully scaled the slippery summit of Trade Deadline Day on April 12th.

Now it’s full tilt towards the finish line and the post-season. While the date of the Toronto Maple Leafs first playoff game is already imprinted on most Leafs fans minds, April 24th should be circled on the calendar, if for a different, but perhaps more important reason.

April 24th is more than just a game building the playoff picture, it’s also a very special Hockey Night in Canada on tap from 7pm ET. For the first time ever alongside its long time running English, French and Punjabi airings, Molson in partnership with Sportsnet, will have HNIC broadcast that night’s games in Cantonese, Hindi, Mandarin, Vietnamese, German, Tagalog and Arabic.

According to Molson, “The 7 languages selected are the most commonly spoken in each Canadian city with an associated NHL team and represent the mosaic of current and prospective hockey fans coast to coast”, and isn’t that something we can all get behind?

Special Toronto Maple Leafs Broadcast

Much in the same way that politeness and saying sorry seems to be stuck in our DNA as Canadians, hockey is part of our identity. It’s the basis of so many great memories from playing the game, to making connections in a new community whether you’ve moved town, city or country. Hockey has held us all together on so many occasions. On April 24th, in what has been such a difficult past year, we have the chance to and open our arms, and our game.

While we may still be physically distanced, sport once again offers its unique ability to bring us all together. It may be tough right now but for those of you reading this and living in Canada, we are so fortunate to be here, and for the ones who have experienced the game in any form, so lucky hockey has given us an escape when we have needed it most.

Saturday April 24th will provide that exact same escape, just this time, for the first time ever, Canada’s unofficial national game will be on tap for so many more Canadians in their mother tongue. That is something to be proud of regardless of how your team is doing.

In parts of the globe the gradual return of fans to sporting fixtures offers that glimmer of hope of a world returning to whatever normal was. In Canada that prospect is still tantalizingly out of reach but for now, while we cannot all crowd around the same TV, this multilingual broadcast offers us all a chance to grow and share the game we love.

Forget for a second that hockey with its “clapper”, “five-hole”, “barnburner” and more has its own unique language. This Hockey Night In Canada broadcast can set up a whole new band of hockey fans and soon there will be even more hockey fanatics that speak the same 200 foot language, crack the same jokes and debate the same issues.

Come Saturday it’ll still be a battle for first in the division with only a handful of games left so yes, the two points are important. Toronto Maple Leafs fans will be praying for a continued positive boost from the arrival of Nick Foligno, a return to form for Jack Campbell and possibly a glimpse of Frederik Andersen post injury against a surging Winnipeg Jets. It is a game neither team wants to lose.

So yes, the two points are important, but with our world the way it is right now, however big or small you want to look at it, there might just be some things bigger than the two points at stake. At 7pm ET on Saturday April 24th the puck drops, and history is made.