How to Watch ‘Game of Thrones’ Legally in Canada

At this point, most of us have run out for hyperbolic ways to describe how wildly popular HBO’s Game of Thrones is. The show has won a record setting 38 Emmy awards (and has been nominated for 108), it’s the internet’s most talked-about show and its sixth season saw over 10-million American viewers per episode. Of course, that last number doesn’t sound that impressive until you remember that it’s been the world’s most pirated show five years in a row. And that includes A LOT of Canadians.

If you’re American, watching Game of Thrones legally is pretty straightforward. HBO’s standalone streaming service HBO Now is only available in the United States (like all good things). Unfortunately, Canadians aren’t afforded that privilege. Streaming and torrenting in Canada is a bit of a moral grey area and you could get slapped with a nasty copyright notice which is no fun (but also you could just ignore them and nothing will happen).

Unfortunately, there’s no actual way to watch Game of Thrones legally other than paying a lot of actual money to do so. And it’s not cheap. For example, HBO Now in the United States costs $15 USD (which is roughly $20 CAD) per month. It doesn’t require any cable subscription, essentially Netflix but better because you can stream television shows as they air on television like cable.

In Canada, there’s only one way to watch HBO content (including Game of Thrones) that’s currently on air: having a cable subscription (the CRTC has mandated all cable providers need to provide a $25 skinny page) and paying an additional $20 or so on top of your cable subscription to have access to The Movie Network (which includes HBO Canada). Once you have that cable subscription, you will have access to TMN Go to stream to your computer or tablet or whatever.

Comparing it with the our neighbours down south, it’s pretty much impossible to do “the right thing” (if you think paying for cable is the right thing), unless you want to invest in an actual television, a cable subscription and an additional $20 a month to watch a single show and maybe some Silicon Valley too, or boxing and hey, Curb is coming back. Meaning, to watch a bunch of people on thrones get eaten by dragons (I don’t watch this show, but I guess that’s what it’s about?) you have to pay some top dollar for at least a couple of months until it will become legally available on other services (for $) like iTunes, the Xbox Store, Playstation Network, etc etc.

Sorry, if you were hoping this article would be a listicle. A listicle requires options.

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