Sling TV may not be as well known as some of the most popular streaming services out there, but it does have the sports that fans want to watch. Sling TV delivers live streams of sports, from the NBA and NFL to Premier League Soccer and, yes, NHL games too.
Whether you can watch all the NHL games on Sling TV — that’s another question.
Let’s start with the basics, though. Sling TV comes with two tracks of channels. There’s Sling Orange and Sling Blue. You can buy one, but Sling’s really going to push you to get both, and the tracks are priced to make that easier on your wallet. But if you’re only going to get one of the tracks, you’ll want it to be Sling Orange because that’s the one with ESPN, TBS, and TNT. And that’s where you’ll find the national NHL games.
In addition, you’ll want to take a look at the Sling TV Extras, which are optional bundles of channels that will help fill out the two main anemic tracks. The channels can differ a little if you only have one of the two tracks. The good news, though, is that NHL Network is included in either one of the $11-a-month Sports Extra add-ons. So that’s handled.
If you’re an NHL die-hard, though, you’ll quickly notice that Sling TV only goes so far when it comes to the NHL. That’s not necessarily Sling’s fault — it’s just how the TV rights ended up, and games are only available on so many channels. So get NHL Network if you want, but you’ll also want to check out ESPN+ if you’re trying to watch an out-of-market game. For everything else, you’ll have to roll the dice with a regional sports network, which has a tendency to change fairly often.
And some NHL games are available on the ABC broadcast channel, which is where things start to get a little messy. ABC is available to stream on Sling TV, but only in a handful of markets. If you live outside those markets, you’ll either need to use a different streaming service (like YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV) or hook up an over-the-air antenna. Sling TV has its own option for that, called AirTV. But once it’s set up and you’ve scanned for channels, everything will appear in the Sling app itself, right alongside all the streaming channels. So while it’s a little extra work upfront, the end result is pretty slick.
And that’s the short answer. Yes, you can watch some NHL games on Sling TV — the ones that are broadcast nationally, anyway. For the others, you’ll need to have a secondary source, which any true hockey fan will be sure to have, right?
