NHL Technology Showcase gives glimpse of future of hockey consumption

SEATTLE -- The squares flashed across the screen, images from the game between the Seattle Kraken and Anaheim Ducks being played at Climate Pledge Arena, along with images from other games being played Thursday across the NHL. There were graphics being produced at Climate Pledge, package together by someone in Wisconsin, with all of the feeds drawn from the cloud run by Amazon Web Services.

It was not the broadcast going out to viewers of the Kraken-Ducks at home, but it was a mock-up of what could be, sooner than later. The pilot broadcast, part of the 2023 NHL Technology Showcase, was AWS demonstrating how it might create a more efficient, potentially more sustainable broadcast, without the need for production trucks, and with the ability to pull from in-arena feeds, from real-time feeds from other live NHL games for clips and updates, all without the need for production staff to be on-site.
It's flexibility and versatility, with all the options at their fingertips.
"We're trying to be forward thinking in everything we do," said Dave Lehanski, NHL executive vice president of business development and innovation, "… and this solution allows for the production of a complete live game broadcast with the efficiency and scalability to use the same set of tools to create multiple broadcasts of the same game to engage a variety of specific audiences."
It's the future of hockey consumption, a companion to old-fashioned game viewing, that the companies and the NHL believe will increase the experience for fans, for broadcasters, bringing in new eyeballs and engaging people the League might not have otherwise reached. It was all on display at the 2023 NHL Technology Showcase, the third of its kind, this one held at Climate Pledge Arena while the Kraken played the Ducks below.
To that end, at one station, Sander Schouten, the co-founder of Beyond Sports, was showing off the technology that may allow for more broadcasts like the March 14 "NHL Big City Greens Classic" in which Disney aired the first live, animated NHL telecast inspired by Disney's hit show "Big City Greens."
Using the data points from 10 cameras around the arena -- there are no chips or trackers -- they create a 3D image from 2D images via machine learning. They collect data on 29 points on the players and five on the stick, creating a million data points per minute.

And from that, the magic happens.
"We can send it to wherever we want," Schouten said. "If we want to go more for kids, and we want to go 'Big City Greens,' then it's just a different wrapper over the same data points. We can do linear videos or we could also go directly into Roblox or in Fortnite, a direct push into those kind of worlds as well. And that just attracts a completely different generation."
Schouten said his product, Hawk-Eye Innovations, is focused on kids from age 4 to 18, trying to engage them at a younger age by coming to them where they are and exposing them in worlds where they're already comfortable. But it's not only the League's ability to wrap the feed -- it's also the consumer's ability to do the same, to clip it for TikTok or other social media feeds, that makes the technology tantalizing.
In another part of the Space Needle Lounge, the evolution of NHL Edge IQ powered by AWS Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning was being demonstrated.

As the puck dropped for the Kraken and Ducks, the circles -- a player's face and name contained within each one -- began to move across the screen, a real-time view into what each was doing and how far and how fast.
Pulling data from trackers in players' jerseys and a puck with a chip embedded, the tablet -- or a phone or other personal device -- can provide input about top speeds and total distances, a player's heat map, face-off probability. It was being demonstrated on a physical tabletop designed by MLSE Digital Labs, which uses NHL Edge Puck and Player Tracking. It can provide a snapshot and additional context for a fan in a suite or in the seats or out to dinner away from the arena.
"It's a way for the fan to feel a little closer to the game," said Farah Bastien, director of research and development for data engineering and data science at MLSE.
Like all the rest of the technology being demonstrated, it wasn't just highlights. It was data. It was storytelling.
"If you are sitting lower bowl, you can feel the hits, you can feel how fast a player is skating, but if you move further away, you lose that," Bastien said. "The same thing in suites or in broadcast. But when you can see at a breakaway, a player is moving as fast as a car, it's incredible. I feel like that's what we forget when you think about the content. I think the stats make things more personal."

There was, too, the introduction of "Opportunity Analysis," a new advanced stat powered by AWS machine learning that evaluates offensive opportunities, figuring out the likelihood of a shot inside of 60 feet becoming a goal.
Brant Berglund, the senior director of coaching and GM applications at the NHL, demonstrated the probabilities in different scenarios, as a player crosses the blue line, as the pass crosses the "meridian," a straight line perpendicular to the blue line that stretches to the goal.
"We're going to give them almost a report card of every shot, and the report card is going to list out the top five features on that individual shot," Berglund said. "It's going to say whether it raised it or lowered and whether or not the impact, the contribution to the projected goal rate was major, moderate or minor.
"Because behind the scenes we have all this information, but it's really important that we're not just going out to the data junkies. We want to give everybody something that they can use in a turnkey fashion."