Just over a month after Rogers shuttered Sportsnet 650 from the radio airways, Vancouver Canucks radio broadcasts have reportedly found a new home for next season.

As first reported by Daily Hive and later confirmed by The Province, Canucks radio broadcasts will air on 104.9 FM – Kiss radio in Vancouver, along with both 107.5 FM and 92.5 FM in the Fraser Valley. All of those stations are owned by Rogers Sports and Media. According to reports, Brendan Batchelor and Randip Janda will retain their roles as play-by-play and colour commentators for Canucks broadcasts on the new frequencies. Batchelor has been at the microphone calling Canucks games since 2017 while Janda joined him in the booth as lead analyst in 2022.

Reports say the broadcasts will include both pre- and post-game content, although a host (or hosts) for that portion of the programming has not been revealed. It’s believed the new broadcast arrangement will have Batchelor and Janda describe the action live from Rogers Arena for all home games, and the expectation is that the duo will call road games off a monitor from Vancouver, as has been the case since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The move to the FM band should strengthen the signal for Canucks games throughout Metro Vancouver. However, placing Canucks broadcasts on a music station will lack the day-long build-up the games have had for years in this market on all sports radio. Canucks broadcasts have been heard on Sportsnet 650 since the station launched in 2017. Prior to that, they were on Team/TSN 1040 from 2006 through 2017. For the first 35 seasons of the hockey club’s existence, games were heard on CKNW. This will mark the first time in franchise history that Canucks games have been heard on the FM dial in the Metro Vancouver area. It’s likely that all games will be streamed on a Rogers website, too.

The Canucks open the preseason on September 19th in Seattle. There is no word yet on whether all preseason games will be carried on Kiss FM. The team opens the regular season September 29th in Edmonton. It will be interesting, to say the least, to see what the local sports media landscape looks like when the puck drops on the first game of the new NHL season. By then, many of the 650 show hosts who lost their jobs in July will likely have revealed their plans.