Toronto’s Andi Petrillo brings the NHL to streaming with historic new broadcast, Canada Reviews

There’s a new way to tune in for Monday night hockey — and Toronto’s own Andi Petrillo is leading the charge. The National Hockey League (NHL) is making its foray into the world of streaming with Prime Monday Night Hockey. 

Petrillo, co-host of the livestreaming show and host of another Prime Video venture, NHL Coast to Coast, says she’s been “over the moon” about the new gig.

“What’s great about this format is that we’re on location for all the games — so we can get these former players or team executives to join us on set, and all they have to do is come downstairs from their office,” she says. 

Since the first livestream aired in October, the broadcast desk has been visited by guests that include Toronto Maple Leafs legend Mats Sundin and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. Petrillo’s NHL Coast to Coast series has been even more star-studded, with P.K. Subban, Sidney Crosby and current Leafs player Chris Tanev stopping by to talk about all things hockey. 

The new shows stand out among a sea of cable TV hockey shows, but Petrillo is no stranger to “firsts.” She was the first full-time female member with the Hockey Night in Canada studio team, the first woman in Canada to have her own daily sports talk radio show with TSN’s Leafs Lunch, the first woman to win Sports Media Canada’s “Outstanding Broadcaster” award in 2022,  the first woman to win a Canadian Screen Award for Best Sports host . . . the list goes on. 

But Petrillo notes that she’s happy not to be the “only” anymore. “When I first started covering the NHL in 2006, I was the only woman in that room on a daily basis,” she says. “Now I see more female reporters, and they’re not just doing rinkside [reporting], they’re doing panels, they’re doing play-by-play.”

FAST FACTS

Name: Andi Petrillo 

Favourite place in the city: High Park

Favourite local restaurant: Tadka

Favourite sportscaster: Terry Leibel

What’s key for Petrillo is that women aren’t used as tokens. “I get upset when stations say, ‘Oh, we need women on our broadcast,’ and stick someone new on the NHL broadcast right away,” she says. “People seem to forget that women need to come through the ranks, the same way men start covering junior hockey, then go to the minors, then get their break at the NHL. It’s not fair for women to miss out on gaining that experience.” 

It’s that experience that Petrillo says helped her get to where she is now — especially as someone who never originally thought she would go into sportscasting. “I always wanted to get into broadcasting; I thought I was going to get into war correspondence or something like 60 Minutes.”

Though Petrillo played sports her whole life, she never considered sports reporting — until a radio college professor changed that. “He said, ‘Your entire demeanor completely changes when you’re talking sports.’ At the time, it wasn’t really a thing that you encouraged women to do; I was always encouraged to be the news anchor.”

Petrillo gained experience at her local York Region news station before landing a role on Leafs TV. Eventually, she was tapped to join Hockey Night in Canada, and soon enough, she was taking on the Olympics with her own show, Road to the Olympic Games. 

It’s a dream progression for someone who has always been motivated by the “human element” of sports. “At the end of the day, the athletes are what matter, and the competition is what matters. The storytelling is always what I love about sports,” she says. 

Now, as the host of the NHL’s first national broadcast package with a digital streaming service in Canada, Petrillo is still driven by that same motivation.

“Half the games I’m hosting, half the games I do rinkside, and every time I do a sit down interview with a player from one of the teams. Oftentimes we’re not even really talking hockey, because it’s just getting to know that player. Ultimately, if we can expose more people to the sport, bring a little human element while still focusing on the Xs and Os of the game, then I think this is a broadcast that could potentially stick around for years to come that Canadians will enjoy.”