'NHL Big City Greens Classic' adds new dimension to Rangers-Capitals game

BRISTOL, Conn. -- Artistic impression will come to life with the first live, animated NHL telecast when the Washington Capitals play the New York Rangers in the "NHL Big City Greens Classic" on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; ESPN+, Disney Channel, Disney XD, Disney+).

The alternate broadcast, inspired by Disney's Emmy-award winning comedy "Big City Greens," will feature live, real-time volumetric animation of players and teams modeled after characters on the show.
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Steve Levy and Mark Messier will have the traditional broadcast of the regular-season game (7 p.m. ET; ESPN, ESPN+, SNE, SNP, TVAS and SN NOW) from Madison Square Garden, while Drew Carter and Kevin Weekes will call the special broadcast. In ESPN's Studio Z this past Friday, each wore motion capture suits working to display animation and respective avatars for the simulation modeled after characters from the show.
"I really want my curiosity to be deep, my excitement for it," said Weekes, a former NHL goalie. "Hopefully that ends up translating into the broadcast itself because we're being transported, certainly for me, I'll be transported into a different world. And more importantly, we want to be able to transport the viewer, the listener, into a different world.

"Not only are the players the artists, but so too are the characters, and now we're going to kind of merge and integrate those two in the storytelling via the animation and via that technology."
The virtual scene is Big City, where Bill Green, 10-year-old son Cricket, older sister Tilly and Gramma Alice relocate from the country town of Smalton. Cricket and Tilly will be in the guise of a chosen Rangers and Capitals skater, and the starting goalies will be played by Gramma Alice and another character.
Promotion has bred intrigue. While watching a tune-in spot, NHL executive vice president of business development and innovation David Lehanski wondered what viewers would be thinking. What is the first animated live NHL game? Is it a cartoon? Is it an NHL game with live animation around it?
How is it different from the "NFL on Nickelodeon" and ESPN's Emmy-nominated "NBA Marvel Arena of Heroes," traditional telecasts with overlays of animated characters?
Watch: Cricket calls the NHL!
"We are airing an animated version of the Rangers-Capitals game and it's the real game," Lehanski said. "The players are moving in real time. The puck is moving in real time. It's the same game, but it's animated and it's three-dimensional. It's really cool to think about where this can go. Beyond excited about where we are, who we're doing this with and the way it's been received to date."
"Big City Greens" creators and brothers Chris and Shane Houghton are hockey fans. The program is a growing brand for the younger Disney audiences -- Big City Greens is Disney's No. 1 animated comedy and television's No. 2 most-watched series among kids ages 6-11 from Dec. 27, 2021, to Dec. 25, 2022, according to Nielsen Media Research -- so the connection with the NHL's desire to be innovative and a game between two major-market teams competing for a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs made perfect sense.
Harmonious with Disney storytelling is NHL Edge, the League's puck and player tracking technology that uses 14 infrared cameras in each of the 32 NHL arenas throughout every game to track the movements of the puck and each on-ice player via sensors inside the puck and in the players' jerseys. The data generated is for teams, media and fans. Beyond Sports, an AI-based visualization company, has collaborated with the NHL for the capability to produce live games and highlights via NHL Edge data using animated character overlays for 2D and 3D environments. Motion capture is the foundation of Silver Spoon Animation, whose expertise includes live 3D graphics, character animation and visual effects (VFX) with real lighting, camera tracking and stats integration.
That technology takes the puck and player tracking data to recreate the game in a virtual 3D environment with animated players and camera angles.
"Washington, New York, big city, kind of ties into the theme as it is," said Johanna Goldblatt, manager, programming and acquisitions at ESPN. "We gave ourselves enough time to really make this special and if we're going to do this, we're going to do it the right way."

Jeff Nelson, director of the "NHL Big City Greens Classic," is up for the challenge. So is Ed Placey, vice president of production at ESPN. To achieve it is to entertain and inform. Those new to the sport of hockey will be educated on the rules of the game and what makes the players tick. Those unfamiliar to "Big City Greens," like Weekes, will learn a few comedic quirks behind the characters.
"[Carter] will be well-versed to answer any questions that Kevin asks," Placey said. "Who are these characters? Why is there a grandma in goal? Why are there other characters that are jumping on the ice? For every question, we will have answers. The characters in the narrative we've created don't really know hockey, so we'll teach them."
The ambitious venture has fed into Weekes' childlike wonder. Nelson left a January rehearsal fascinated, laughing every 10 minutes knowing where they're headed and what remains possible.
"It's one of those things where it's a project … and you're anxious about it and you're worried that it's something brand new that we're doing, but it's a Disney project," Nelson said. "It's a cartoon project and you know your audience too, even though it will be kids and adults at the same time watching it. I think it's going to be a lot of fun."