The cancellation by Rogers has drawn backlash from many in both the Punjabi-Canadian and sports communities

The cancellation of Hockey Night in Canada Punjabi after serving the community for 18 years is affecting more than just the dozen or so employees who worked there.

Jagraj Lalli had a dream of hosting on the TV hockey broadcast since he was eight years old. After landing a job in 2022 to work behind the scenes of the show, Lalli knew he was getting closer to that goal, which eventually came to fruition in October 2025 when he went on air for the first time.

“I sometimes tear up when I think about the moment before I went on air. I was trying my best to contain the emotions because I was about to go on air in front of the whole world,” Lalli said on Sunday.

“But it was tough at that moment not to think of my great-grandmother, not to think of my parents who worked so hard day in and day out to make sure that I got everything I wanted in my childhood, and it allowed me to pursue my dreams such as this to be able to make it on the show I grew up watching.”

The Punjabi version of the broadcast was cancelled by Rogers Sports & Media on Friday, with the broadcast’s social media page posting the news of the show’s cancellation. It stated the show is proud of its accomplishments over the last 18 years and for creating a “truly unique” space in Canadian sports.

The show aired Saturday nights, providing National Hockey League game coverage and features from around the league in Punjabi.

Lalli and his colleagues found out about the news a day earlier on a conference call. While many anticipated some cuts, an outright cancellation was “shocking,” he said.

“Between the departures of News1130 as well as Sportsnet 650, and then some talent being laid off as well on the Sportsnet front, we were expecting that change was coming,” Lalli added. “It’s bittersweet in the sense of bitter — being, our show is over — but sweet, being, we’re seeing all around the world now what sort of positive impact this show had on the hockey world in general.”

The cancellation has drawn backlash from many in Punjabi Canadian and sports communities.

Punjabi TV journalist Manraaj Grewal said she knows many people who benefited from the broadcast.

“I think we’re definitely going to lose many viewers who are not going to feel comfortable ,who listened because of the hosts’ voices because they found comfort, and not just the language but the host themself,” Grewal said.

“Now, we, as the younger generation, are going to be watching Hockey Night with our parents, our grandparents and being translators for them. … I don’t know what the thinking was behind it, but yeah, it kind of feels like this little piece of culture that we had that was our own, but mixed with Canadian culture, is kind of being taken away.”

Gurpreet Kaur Bains, languages head at L.A. Matheson Secondary in Surrey, said her son and daughter played hockey growing up and the broadcast was a way for them to connect with their grandparents, aunts and uncles over the love of the game.

“My parents are immigrants here and when they arrived they had no understanding of hockey, how it works,” said Bains. “The English language was a barrier for a lot of people. This program gave them the taste of hockey and connected them to the Canadian game.

“I feel like it united them to Canada because they could understand it better.”

Bains even used broadcasts to teach Punjabi to high school students who may have spoken mostly English growing up.

“A lot of families are immigrant families, where grandparents don’t speak English,” Bains said. “So, because I also happen to be a language teacher, a Punjabi language teacher, this became a huge resource,” including having students use vocabulary from the play-by-play in their assignments.

“So the program was not only connecting families and grandparents and helping but also as a teacher, I felt like it was a great resource.”

Lalli agrees that the show was the bridge between Punjabi culture and hockey.

While the show may be over, Lalli said he and his colleagues’ goal of bridging that gap will continue regardless.

“I was maybe six years old when I first watched the show, and for myself, being a first-generation Canadian, it was a way to kind of help teach my parents and inform my parents what the sport of hockey is all about,” he said.

“This show was so much more than just the people that worked on it. It was the community that watched us, the community that supported us, the community that helped us build this to what it is now. So while we do feel bad for ourselves, we feel even worse for the community that’s not going to have access to something like this anymore.”

With files from Joseph Ruttle