The NHL will soon have its own brand channel on YouTube, and the video-sharing site is negotiating with other sports leagues for similar channels.

The channel will provide NHL game highlights, behind-the-scenes videos and user-uploaded videos, PaidContent reports. The league will monitor all user-uploaded content and reserves the right to remove any copyrighted material, or let it stand. The NHL already has online distribution deals in place with Google, Yahoo and Comcast.

But the Google deal lets Google Video charge for downloads, while the YouTube agreement has the league posting content that can be freely shared. The structure of the deal's involving Google's two properties could hint at the company's future strategy: have YouTube offer game highlights for free, with the full game being available for download from Google Video. Moreover, both services could promote offerings from each other.

If this is Google's two-pronged strategy, the success of the model will likely be scrutinized closely by other potential partners, such as the NFL and MLB, both of which enjoy a much larger fanbase than the NHL.