Following word that Flin Flon will be excluded from its Hometown Hockey broadcast this season, Rogers Sportsnet is explaining its criteria for selecting host communities.
“The Rogers Hometown Hockey Tour locations are chosen based on a number of different factors, but primarily storytelling,” spokesman Sebastian Gatica tells The Reminder. “We work with our broadcast team to determine what stories from which communities we want to highlight. We also look at if a location works logistically when we map out all the stops and our cross-country route. Having a Rogers presence is not a prerequisite.”
Rogers Hometown Hockey is an NHL broadcast whose pre-game and intermission studio travels to a different Canadian community each week.
Local hockey fans were puzzled last season when the show aired from Thompson even though much of the content, including features on Bomber greats Bobby Clarke and Reggie Leach, related to Flin Flon.
Sources also said they saw a Facebook-posted video last season in which Hometown Hockey host Ron MacLean said the show would go to Flin Flon in 2015-16.
