It’s game night, the Sens are in town, and the question comes up again: which channel is it on tonight? Sportsnet? TSN? Prime Video? For Senators fans who have dropped cable, or are thinking about it, that question gets even more complicated.
You can watch Ottawa Senators games without cable, but no single service carries every game. Senators broadcasts are split between national and regional networks, in English and in French, and where you live decides which ones you can actually watch.
Here’s how it all fits together, and how to make sure you never miss a puck drop at the Canadian Tire Centre.
Senators games fall into two groups: national games and regional games.
National games are broadcast across the whole country under the NHL’s national rights deal in Canada. Regional games are broadcast only inside the Senators’ home territory, by the team’s own broadcast partners. Most of the schedule is regional, but the biggest matchups and Saturday night games often go national.
That split is the reason fans end up hunting through channels. The same team can be on three or four different networks in a single week, and with young talent like2026 first-round pick Jaxon Cover coming through the organization, fans have more reasons than ever to keep track.
In English, national Senators games air on Sportsnet, mostly on Monday and Saturday nights. Prime Video has the Wednesday night national games, in both English and French. In French, national games air on TVA Sports.
If you’re watching without cable, that means a Sportsnet streaming subscription for most national games, a Prime membership for Wednesdays, and TVA Sports if you prefer the French broadcast.
Regional Senators games air on TSN in English and RDS in French, under a long-term agreement between the team and Bell Media. On the English side, most regional games air on TSN5.
These games are available to viewers inside the team’s broadcast region, which covers Eastern Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada. They also stream live through the networks’ own digital platforms, so you don’t need a cable box to watch them, just a subscription to the right streaming service.
This is where things get tough for Senators fans who have moved away from Ottawa. National games are available anywhere in Canada, but regional games are blacked out outside the team’s territory.
Sportsnet offers a premium tier that removes some out-of-market blackouts, but it doesn’t remove blackouts on games carried regionally by TSN, so it won’t fill in the regional Senators games for fans in Toronto, Winnipeg or Calgary. Before you sign up for anything, check exactly which games it will and won’t include where you live.
Not for hockey anymore. Saturday night NHL games used to be available for free over the air, but national games now sit entirely on Sportsnet, Prime Video and TVA Sports, with no over-the-air network carrying them.
An antenna is still worth having in the Ottawa area for local news and the main networks, and it costs nothing after the initial purchase. Just don’t count on it for game night.
Add it up and a dedicated Sens fan can end up juggling Sportsnet, Prime Video, TSN, RDS and TVA Sports, each with its own app and login. That’s a lot of switching just to catch a power play.
That’s why some Ottawa households have moved their live TV to an IPTV Canada service. IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) sends live channels through your home internet instead of a cable line, and you browse them in one app on your TV, flipping channels the way you would with a cable box. Instead of opening a different app for every game, the sports networks you watch most can sit in one guide, in English and French.
A stable connection matters as much as the service itself. Plan for about 10 Mbps for each HD stream running at the same time, and connect your streaming box with an ethernet cable if your Wi-Fi struggles. Nobody wants the picture freezing during overtime.
TSN Radio 1200 carries Senators games in English, with live audio streaming, so you can follow along in the car, at work or anywhere without a TV.
Plenty of longtime fans also like to mute the TV and run the radio call instead. Radio streams and TV broadcasts are often a few seconds apart, so if the radio is ahead of your picture, pause the TV briefly until the two line up.
Before the puck drops:
• Check the schedule to see whether tonight’s game is national or regional.
• Confirm the broadcaster: Sportsnet, Prime Video, TSN, RDS or TVA Sports.
• Pick your language, English or French.
• Know your territory, inside the Senators’ region or out of market.
• Log in early, a few minutes before puck drop, not during the anthem.
Watching the Senators without cable is easy once you understand the split. National games are on Sportsnet, Prime Video and TVA Sports, regional games are on TSN and RDS, and your location decides which of those you can watch.
Sort out your services, give your internet some headroom and keep the radio as a backup, and you’ll be ready for every game, from the first faceoff in October to whatever the spring brings. And between games, it’s worth remembering the team’s work off the ice, fromSenators players giving back to children and communities for more than two decades.
