TORONTO – Personnel substitutions are the name of the game this off-season at Canada’s most venerable sports property as new on-air faces and a new executive producer will take Hockey Night In Canada into the 2007-08 National Hockey League Season.
Still-new executive director of CBC Sports, Scott Moore, has wasted little time overhauling parts of the broadcast, and may have rebuilt the on-air duo he once had when he was in charge at Rogers Sportsnet in Jim Hughson and Craig Simpson.
While Hughson was already on board, Simpson – who had been an Edmonton Oilers assistant coach since 2003 – was officially hired today. It’s not known yet whether Hughson and Simpson will form the show’s primary game announcers. Simpson was an in-studio analyst during last season’s playoffs.
HNIC’s legendary game caller Bob Cole and his long-time analyst Harry Neale, both over 70 years old, will return this season as well, but with a reduced schedule as both are being eased into retirement.
(Ed Note: Here’s hoping alterations continue to roll through the broadcasts in a more nuanced way, too, like into the pregame show and second period Satellite Hot Stove panel, for example. In those segments, the hosts and guests use so much jargon and so many nicknames that they are mostly impenetrable to the casual hockey fan.) 
Also today, Moore announced the promotion of Sherali Najak (right) to executive producer HNIC. A 20-year CBC veteran, Najak has served as the senior producer for the broadcast since 2002, and begins his new assignment immediately. Najak’s new role will include overseeing the entire broadcast package, "in addition to providing a long-term vision for the show over the next seven years, as it moves forward with the new contract agreement with the National Hockey League through to 2013/14," says today’s press release.
Najak was also the SP of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, the 2004 Olympic Summer Games in Athens, the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, the NHL Awards Show (1999, 2000, and 2001) and the 2005 World Track and Field Championships in Helsinki, Finland. He won a Gemini Award in 2004 for his work on CBC’S Hockey Day In Canada. 
He replaces Joel Darling (left), who has been promoted to director of production for CBC Sports. He had been EP at HNIC since 2000. In his new position, Darling will oversee all aspects of CBC Sports production.
