The full 2026–27 National Hockey League schedule was released Thursday afternoon and, apart from airlines, is one of our first highly-visible tastes at how such organizations will react to the recent timekeeping changes in British Columbia and Alberta. https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-releases-2026-27-regular-season-schedule
In an earlier interview on 2 June, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman had said the changes "may impact some start times in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. But we'll deal with it just as we deal with whatever things come our way that we don't get to control." https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/nhl-bc-alberta-daylight-saving-9.7221209 Michael Naraine, Associate Professor of Sport Management at Brock University in St Catharines, Ontario, had an extended conversation with CHQR-AM Calgary's Shaye Ganam on the topic on 4 June, particularly how the changes may affect TV doubleheaders: https://ustbl.cdn.cf.tveyes.com/playlist/CARADCHQR/20260604120530-20260604121823/stream.m3u8 As expected, the effects on the schedule are fairly minor as they pertain to weeknight home games for the three teams; most already started at 6:30, 7:00, or 7:30pm local; each now adds one or two 8:00pm weeknight starts compared to last season. Saturdays (the traditional day for TV doubleheaders) are a bit more affected: All of Vancouver's typical 7pm starts during the otherwise-standard-time period shift to 8pm local to stay in the "10pm ET slot", while more Saturday games in Edmonton and Calgary that might've otherwise started at 8pm are shifted into the afternoon instead, leaving each with two 9pm local starts. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the NHL's online schedule does not yet have "new" zones for BC and Alberta in its dropdown or in its internal logic for the "Venue Game Time" option (although BC's new zone is equivalent to Arizona, where the Coyotes played until 2024). So — while the game times all appear to be internally represented correctly with respect to UTC — at least at time of writing, home games in BC and Alberta between November and early March are slightly misrepresented: See Ducks @ Oilers (5 November) and Ducks @ Flames (6 November), e.g., showing "6:00pm MST" when they're actually scheduled for 7:00pm MDT/CST. Conversions to other zones where timekeeping practices haven't changed (including the broadcast-reference Eastern Time) remain accurate ("8:00pm EST", in these cases). https://www.nhl.com/schedule/2026-10-31 However, all of the correct local time adjustments seem to be properly reflected in the full-league PDF schedule for 2026–27: https://media.d3.nhle.com/image/private/t_document/prd/zj6mn0paz7zqpywcedao.pdf c.f. last season (2025–26): https://media.nhl.com/site/vasset/public/attachments/2025/07/19119/2025-26%20NHL%20Regular%20Season%20Schedule%20(By%20Club).pdf Of course… if the US ends up adopting year-round daylight time between now and November, leaving eastern Canada alone in falling back, there could be more adjustments to come. -- Tim Parenti
