Not only will Saturdays no longer be Hockey Night in Canada until Bettman, Fehr and company pull their heads out of their collective asses—it won’t be any Night in Canada, either.  As The Globe and Mail reports, CBC sicced its lawyers on CTV last week, after the populist private broadcaster had attempted to rebrand Saturdays as Big Bang Night in Canada.  “Big Bang Night in Canada depreciates the goodwill of CBC’s trademark,” CBC warned Bell Media in a letter quoted by the Globe. “It uses a distinctive feature of the trademark which reduces the esteem of CBC’s trademark, dilutes CBC’s trademark and directly entices viewers from CBC.”  Who knew the CBC had a monopoly on all Canadian evenings?  I guess we must bid a fond farewell to:

• Steak Night in Canada
• Curling Night in Canada
• 2-for-1 Chicken Wing Night in Canada
• Getting Laid To-Night in Canada

…to name but a few Canadian activities that have nothing to do with hockey.

CTV, being the good-natured folks that they are, responded to the national network with tongue fully in cheek.  “Out of deep respect for the millions of viewers that CBC has alleged are confused and in the spirit of the Lady Byng trophy, CTV today pledged that it will heed the request and rebrand its Saturday night programming as Big Bang Night on CTV,” the broadcaster said. “Hopefully, the move will prevent further ‘reducing the esteem’ of CBC’s programming.”  Because it doesn’t get much more depressing than The Republic of Doyle* re-runs, eh?

(*note that I have never actually seen this program, but I’ve heard it’s on CBC.)