CBC plans remote broadcasting coverage for every sport at Winter Olympics but hockey

The first so-called “normal” Winter Olympics in eight years is on tap at the Milan Cortina Games. 

However, one significant holdover from the 2022 Beijing Games remains: the use of off-site broadcasters for competition coverage. 

The CBC, which holds the domestic rights for the Olympics, will have staff in mixed zone interview areas for every event, but hockey will be the only sport where broadcasters are on site at the venue to call the action. 

“Like most (Olympic) broadcasters, we’re largely going to be calling the races, calling almost everything from home,” said CBC Sports executive director Chris Wilson. “Hockey is different. We feel like with hockey for both men and women, it’s going to have a different expectation. 

“It’s going to have a different level of attention, and so we will be calling the hockey from on-site.”

The CBC had announcers and analysts call the Olympic action from Canadian studios four years ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Remote coverage was used again at the Paris Summer Games in 2024, with the exception of basketball, aquatics and athletics.

The trend will continue for this edition of the Winter Games, which begins Wednesday with mixed doubles curling and continues through the closing ceremony on Feb. 22.

“In terms of the analysts and the play-by-play (crews), the reality of economics and the reality of space and travel and all that stuff is that (with the exception of hockey), it’s all going to be done from Toronto or Montreal,” Wilson said.

NBC, which holds the American broadcast rights, will also have on-site broadcasters at select competitions in Italy.

They include aerials/moguls, alpine skiing, sliding sports, figure skating, freestyle/snowboarding and speedskating. Hockey coverage will have both on-site and remote broadcast calls.

“You lose something if you’re not on site for the broadcasters, and you pick up little things when you’re around the athletes, the events, and just the feel overall,” said Andrew Marchand, a senior sports media columnist for The Athletic, who hosts podcasts on his Marchand Sports Media website. 

“So experienced broadcasters can overcome that and still make it sound pretty good; most of them can. But there’s definitely something lost.”

For Milan Cortina, the Olympic venues are spread throughout northern Italy. Milan will host the opening ceremony, figure skating, hockey and speedskating, while Cortina, more than 400 kilometres away in the Dolomites, will host curling, sliding sports and women’s alpine.

“If you are only watching on a television monitor, you can only see what the camera is showing,” said Malcolm Kelly, a sports journalism program coordinator at Toronto’s Centennial College. “You cannot look around … to provide colour and content. So you can’t do it in quite the same way.”

Men’s alpine and ski mountaineering are set for Bormio, with nearby Livigno hosting freestyle and snowboarding competitions.

“We’ll make sure that we have mixed zone reporters at all the big races,” Wilson said in a recent interview. “(It’s) to make sure that we can capture the moments that we think really are what Canadians expect from CBC in terms of those family reactions and the emotional reactions from the athletes that we’re all looking forward to. 

“And so we’ll have a presence at all the venues.”

In all, the broadcaster plans 22 hours of Olympic programming each day. Live television coverage will be on CBC and streamed via the CBC Gem service.

Veteran broadcaster Ron MacLean is back for his 12th Olympic Games with the CBC. He’ll team up with two-time Olympian Perdita Felicien to host a six-hour morning show. 

Andi Petrillo hosts the six-hour afternoon slot vacated by the retired Scott Russell, and Anastasia Bucsis and Craig McMorris will co-host the four-hour prime time show.

Hockey will be a huge draw with NHL players returning to the Olympics for the first time since the Sochi Games in 2014. On-air talent from TSN and Sportsnet will work together on the hockey broadcasts.

The CBC is also the domestic rights-holder for the March 6-15 Paralympic Games.

“With everything the country has gone through in the past (year) and the state of where we are politically, geopolitically, and just as a nation, I think (the Games are) going to come at a really good time for people to just gather around, put on some red and white Canadian uniforms and just cheer like mad together,” Wilson said. “That’s what we hope will happen.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 31, 2026.