Stanley Cup Final: Big Sound for the Big Games ESPN is combining technique and technology to put fans on the ice By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Friday, June 24, 2022 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The NHL Stanley Cup series is under way, and viewers are hearing the action in a way they haven't heard it before.
We're trying to be aggressive with capturing sound in each area as it happens now, vs. a wide-area collection approach, explains Dan Buddha Bernstein, A1 for ESPN/ABC's Stanley Cup broadcasts. [The latter] has been the approach in the past: to get a big static sound picture around the ice and just let the action happen on it in front of the microphones. It felt like you're up in the stands somewhere. Now we're looking to put you down on the ice.
That takes a combination of technique and technology, he says: the former is a dynamic mix, bringing up mic channels as the action moves closer to each one.
A1 Dan Buddha Bernstein: My goal has not been to put someone in a seat in the stands; it has been to put people in the game.
That's just about being very active on the faders and closely following the action, he says, on the Calrec Apollo consoles aboard Game Creek Spirit mobile unit in Tampa Bay and NEP EN2 in Denver. Helping manage all that additional action is effects submixer Ben Majchrzak, who was added for the Finals and Cup series.
We've continued our season-long efforts at expanding the sound around the crease, Bernstein says. We're still doing the three microphones in each net, a little LCR array, but getting more aggressive with them. For instance, the microphones that we put in and around the goals - particularly the NHL overhead and the mics and the cameras in the net - are recorded independently of the effects mix with the camera. When we play them back, you feel the energy happening in that spot in a way that I don't think has been effectively captured before.
We're also getting a lot more aggressive with miking all of our robotic cameras around the ice to pick up even more direct local sound, he continues. That has been particularly great at the mid-ice positions and the positions right behind each net, where they're really close and right on top of the action. It just brings out all the nuance. There's so much detail in this mix. It certainly puts people in the game. My goal as a mixer on this sport from the very beginning has not been to put someone in a seat in the stands; it has been to put people in the game.
When it comes to microphones - ESPN is deploying more than 50 per game - the traditional Crown PCC160 boundary-layer mics are on the glass around the rink to pick up the hits. That tends to leave the interior of the rink less covered, but, this year, Bernstein is relying on Sennheiser 416 shotguns mounted on the robocams, which helps build a center image for the sound.
The other thing that we're trying to do this year is that we've gotten more aggressive with our crowd miking, he says. Anywhere from eight to 10 crowd mics per event, depending on the building and where there's an opportunity - in Carolina, there were overhead positions we had access to that gave us some great sound positions - are configured as a front and rear array, low and high. We'll also listen for opportunities where we'll ask our announcers to lay out and just let people feel like they're in the building, part of the experience.
The wireless microphones offer perhaps the best opportunities for close-up audio. Each night, the intent is to mike up four players and both coaches for deeper, all-access-level audio. CP Communications handled the RF during the regular season, but the NHL has taken on that task for the postseason, managing distribution of that audio to the various rightsholders, as it did for the Winter Classic game in January.
Effects submixer Ben Majchrzak was added to the ESPN audio team for the NHL Finals and Stanley Cup series.
The player and coach audio remains available only for replay use. However, ESPN has constructed its own infrastructure for managing and searching it.
We're building multiple router points that have all of those mics available on various channels that the EVS folks can hunt and grab the best sound from any particular moment, Bernstein explains. And the camera operators who are doing isos on particular players have a secondary program input from the truck, which is being subrouted by the EVS operators and the producer's tape. Whenever [the camera operators are] told to iso somebody, we change the iso feed going to their program source so that they can follow the action or maybe even report back if they hear something that's awesome. It's very much a collaborative effort between me and the submix and the replay department.
Several Waves plugins, which are running on a separate server connected to the console via a MADI link, have been added to the processing. The noise-reduction plugin, Bernstein says, has been especially helpful.
It let us dig out a little bit more from some of the spots that are getting blown out by the crowd sound, he explains. It helps us enhance the dynamics of certain microphones. There's so much sound in Stanley Cup games. Getting it all and getting it across are the challenges.
Most recent headlines
18/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
18/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
18/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
18/12/2025
Long-term agreement includes the SES SCORE platform and hybrid distribution worldwide to deliver more than 5,000 hours of golf tournaments annually featuring th...
17/12/2025
Investigative journalists across the Western Balkans and T rkiye continue to con...
17/12/2025
Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame Inducts 10 Industry Icons During Unforgettable ...
17/12/2025
ESPN to Debut MNF Playbook with Next Gen Stats, a New AI-Driven NFL Data-AltCastThe series, powered by Adrenaline TruPlay AI, launches Dec. 22 and runs through ...
17/12/2025
Inaugural Optum Golf Channel Games Debut Under the Lights' in Primetime on ...
17/12/2025
The right playlist is essential on New Year's Eve, building the energy as you get ready and keeping it high as you count down to midnight. This year, Spotif...
17/12/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
17/12/2025
Audiences Watched Over 103 Billion Minutes of TV on Thanksgiving Day
NFL Games ...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
KPop Demon Hunters Stars Visit Berklee for Weeklong Celebration Andrew Choi and EJAE, who voiced the film's main characters and contributed to its soundtr...
17/12/2025
December 17 2025, 17:00 (PST) Dolby and LG Unveil a New Era of Home Audio With ...
17/12/2025
Wednesday 17 December 2025
Heated Rivalry will be coming to Sky and streaming service NOW on 10 JanuaryTurn on cookies to view this content. Go to Privacy opti...
17/12/2025
Back to All News
Inside The Unseen World Of Indian Customs: Netflix Reveals The...
17/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix announces PAPARAZZI KING: the docu series coming to Ne...
17/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First Look at Jo Nesbo's Detective Hole Pr...
17/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Welcomes Warner Bros. Discovery Board Recommendation
Business
17 December 2025
Global
Link copied to clipboard
After Careful Revi...
17/12/2025
RT has announced that Kathy Fox has been appointed Commissioning Editor with re...
17/12/2025
The Hao AI Lab research team at the University of California San Diego - at the forefront of pioneering AI model innovation - recently received an NVIDIA DGX B...
17/12/2025
Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on ...
17/12/2025
With the new season of Dancing with the Stars shimmering in the not-too-distant future this New Year, the celebrity and dancer pairings of the twelve couples ha...
16/12/2025
Hawkins has landed on Spotify, just in time for Stranger Things Season 5, Volume...
16/12/2025
Wherever you are, your favorite music and audio content should go seamlessly with you. That's why Spotify has partnered with NAVER Corp, Korea's leading...
16/12/2025
2025 Wrapped arrived bigger and bolder than ever. This year's experience is designed to be ultra personal and shareable, with new features like Wrapped Part...
16/12/2025
Three 12-kilowatt Advanced Electric Propulsion System thrusters, supplied by L3Harris Technologies, form the core of Gateway's propulsion system. Pictured i...
16/12/2025
The challenge facing America's defense industrial base is not just about speed - its about rebuilding the foundation that makes speed possible. Our nations ...
16/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
16/12/2025
SEVILLE, Spain Canal Sur, the public broadcasting service for Andalusia, Spain, has completed a total technology refresh based on Pebble's resilient, softwa...
16/12/2025
NEW YORK Teleprompting hardware provider Telescript International has acquired all software code and intellectual property previously owned by Telescript West. ...
16/12/2025
As cable operators face increased competition from 5G fixed wireless access providers, a new report from Ookla Research finds that T-Mobile is the FWA speed lea...
16/12/2025
Apple has announced a major upgrade to the Apple TV app for device owners outside the Apple ecosystem with news that the Apple TV app for Android now supports G...
16/12/2025
Space42 grows Direct-to-Device partner ecosystem through a Memorandum of Underst...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON Announces Release Date for Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2025 R...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON's Kyivstar Invests in Renewable Energy in Ukraine with Acq...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Emma Appleton, Fares Fares, Frida Gustavsson and Jakob Oftebro...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Docu-reality My Korean Boyfriend Gets a Trailer and Premiere D...
16/12/2025
Harmonic's XOS Advanced Media Processor Improves Streaming Video Quality and Boosts Viewer Engagement SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 16, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: ...
Stanley Cup Final: Big Sound for the Big Games ESPN is combining technique and technology to put fans on the ice By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
