TLN Television is making history with plans to simulcast a game from CBC’s 7th annual Hockey Night in Canada in Italian for the first time on Saturday, Jan. 13 – and sponsors for the broadcast are set to benefit from the deal. Major sponsors of Hockey Night in Canada set for additional exposure to Italian audiences include charter sponsor Ford, Home Depot, Mastercard, Subway, Kia, while the 13-hour Hockey Day in Canada package’s headline sponsor is Tim Horton’s.
The Italian-language simulcast of the Vancouver Canucks vs. Toronto Maple Leafs game, scheduled for 7 pm, will feature play-by-play commentary from TLN sportscaster Alf DeBlasis. Exclusive Italian-Canadian intermission features will also air on TLN, with special emphasis on Italian participants in the game: the Leafs’ Carlo Colaiacovo, Bates Battaglia, Mike Peca and Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo.
TLN Telelatino Television media relations/marketing manager Bruna Aloe says: ‘It’s basically a special event providing the existing sponsors and advertisers on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada with not only the extended exposure of TLN’s national Italian-language broadcast, but also the opportunity to be part of a novel way of reaching out to and embracing the nation’ s wealthiest ethnocultural consumer group, the 1.3 million Canadians of Italian origin,’ says Aloe.
PMB’s most recent stats, set to be updated at the end of March, showed there were about 946,000 Italian-speaking people over the age of 12 living in Canada in 2006 (up from 788,000 in 2000), and some 327,000 watched hockey on TV.
