Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

At the Rink: Washington Capitals Approach Regular Season With Virtual Gameday Digital Experience, Traditional In-Venue Flair

21/04/2021

At the Rink: Washington Capitals Approach Regular Season With Virtual Gameday Digital Experience, Traditional In-Venue Flair Fans are returning on April 27 vs. the New York Islanders By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor

Wednesday, April 21, 2021 - 11:47 am

Print This Story | Subscribe

Story Highlights

The National Hockey League was the last of the four major American sports to host a non-bubble regular season. As fans gradually make their return to the seats, how is that affecting in-venue productions and digital content? Similar to At the Ballpark, On the Gridiron, and On the Hardwood, At the Rink will look at the operations of NHL organizations to see how their coping with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and adapting back to a sense of normalcy.

The talisman of the Washington Capitals, Alexander Ovechkin, is continuing to rewrite the history books with each passing game. Throughout his NHL career in the nation's capital, the franchise's in-venue production team has been their every step of the way to convey the importance of these accomplishments to fans in attendance. This year, while they're away from the stands, the crew is tapping into new forms of entertainment outside of Capital One Arena and traditions inside of the building to capture the play of The Great Eight and the entire team.

I'm extremely proud of our game presentation team and what they've been able to accomplish, says Cassidy Lien, VP, game presentation, Washington Capitals. It's sometimes hard to stay motivated, but they've been able to maintain that motivation and determination throughout the entire regular season.

MORE AT THE RINK INTERVIEWS:

Tampa Bay Lightning's Stanley Cup Banner Ceremony Serves as Reminder of Normalcy During Unusual Year

Toronto Maple Leafs Follow Production Blueprint From 2020 NHL Bubble at Scotiabank Arena

Los Angeles Kings' Wanton Davis Adjusts to His First NHL Season During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Top-Ranked Colorado Avalanche Revel in the Return of Fans

Philadelphia Flyers Flex Potential of 4K Kinetic Centerhung as Fans Return to Wells Fargo Center

Nearly 20 Years in Manitoba, Winnipeg Jets' Kyle Balharry Reflects on Productions at Bell MTS Place

In NHL's North Division, Calgary Flames Keep Battle of Alberta Alive in Empty Scotiabank Saddledome

Detroit Red Wings Cover Motor City Storylines With Three Digital Shows, Hockeytown Home Ice

During First Two Months on the Road, San Jose Sharks Develop Engaging Content in Different Ways

Inside the Dallas Stars' Wild Month of March

Carolina Hurricanes Sidestep Water Leak To Welcome Fans Back to PNC Arena

Vegas Golden Knights Offer Fortress At Home, Debut Studio for 2020-21 NHL Season

Nashville Predators Harness the Passion of Smashville' at Bridgestone Arena

Preseason Planning: Team Devises a Strategy Before the Start of the Regular Season A look inside the Capitals control room.

As Vice President of Game Presentation for Monumental Sports, the entity that oversees the Capitals and the NBA's Washington Wizards, Lien had his hands full at the beginning of 2021. Due to the persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization made the decision to play the new season behind closed doors at Capital One Arena. Prior to the team's first contest on Friday, January 22 vs. the Buffalo Sabres, Lien and his team brainstormed a production plan for a season unlike any other.

I don't think any of us knew exactly what we were doing, what was going to happen, or how it was going to work, he says. No one's been through this before, so we got together with the league and shared all of our resources and ideas. As we were planning and getting everyone together, we all said, Well, why don't we just produce the show in the arena as if fans were there?'

Throughout franchise history, the Capitals have been known to have one of the loudest and most passionate fanbases in the National Hockey League. Despite the emptiness that was to accompany the team's home opener, the production crew still wanted to harness the fans' love for the team and energy that they bring every night. After contemplation and thought, the club concluded that they would continue their normal show to supply an intriguing canvas for the television broadcast on NBC Sports Washington.

We're dressing up our LED boards and some of the tarps [near the ice] to make the arena look less empty on television and get the logos of our sponsors seen [by fans at home], continues Lien. We're also showing our opening video sequence and on-ice 3D projection.

Boots on the Ground: Control Room Staff Handles Productions in an Empty Venue With a thorough plan in place, the individuals running the show inside of the venue are diving headfirst with a clear goal in mind. Manager, Game Presentation Alexa Tanzi has taken charge of some of the most important production elements this season, but from her point of view, it's been a unique challenge to overcome the abnormal silence that fills the building prior to puck drop.

It's one of the strangest feelings I've ever encountered in my life, she says. It's almost a culture shock when you walk in and see something completely different.

On the production side, they're combating the silence with different in-venue elements including fabricated crowd noise, but when it comes to the typical fan interactions, those have been unfortunately altered.

It's been a shift in my planning procedures, she adds. In my normal rundown of scripting out a game, I would usually play something towards the crowd and integrate something as small as a t-shirt toss or as large as our pre-show open sequence to connect the fans. Now, I'm doing that for people who are watching on television or on their laptops at home.

At-Home Entertainm
LINK: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2021/04/21/at-the-rink-washington-capitals...
See more stories from svg

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Scripps Completes Acquisition of WTVQ Lexington

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/08/2026

U.S., U.K. Consumers Now Spend 11 Hours a Day Using Media

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/08/2026

Sinclair Announces 2026 Annual Scholarship Winners

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/08/2026

Tom DeLay: Only Congress Can Change Station Ownership Caps

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/08/2026

IAB Tech Lab Upgrades Open Framework for Agentic Advertising

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/08/2026

DirecTV For Business Inks New Agreement to Sell NFL Sunday Ticket

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/08/2026

IEEE Broadcast Technology Society Honors Charles Einolf

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/08/2026

Homecoming Artist Spotlight: Dreion

Homecoming Artist Spotlight: Dreion The singer, songwriter, and producer talks about finding his village at Berklee ahead of his Homecoming performance on Sep...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

03/08/2026

SVGs TranSPORT Conference Returns to NYC on Oct. 20; Register Today!

SVG's annual TranSPORT conference returns to New York City for a full day of sessions focused on the current state of live-sports-transmission technology. S...

03/08/2026

SVG All-Stars: Stefan Richardson, Director, Global Broadcast, Riot Games

A five-time Emmy winner, this esports vet has built a production career on live storytelling, audience connection, and meeting viewers wherever they are The sp...

03/08/2026

MLBs Jason Hedgcock on Using the Cloud To Produce World Baseball Classic Games for Netflix Japan

Live production in the cloud is a growing trend across the industry and Major Le...

03/08/2026

Cookie Queens Is Sweet With Substance

(L-R) Nyah B., Nala B., Shannon Elizabeth S., Celia K., Olive G., and Nikki B. attend the Q&A for Cookie Queens by Alysa Nahmias, an official selection of the...

03/08/2026

Rhodes launch Rhodes Clav Pro

Recreates a 1977 Hohner Clavinet D6 After launching a software recreation of their own electric piano, Rhodes set about capturing another classic instrument...

03/08/2026

Peak Tamer from Nicky Howard

A modern solution for an old technique Peak Tamer is a new standalone application that automatically applies gain automation to keep rogue peaks under cont...

03/08/2026

Sound Particles update Beat Panner

Plug-in gains object metadata automation export Sound Particles have just released an update that adds a new Metadata Automation function to their their rec...

03/08/2026

SGL Carbon and X-energy announce capacity expansion for Nuclear-Grade Graphite

SGL Carbon and X-energy today announced a binding agreement to double SGL's production capacity for medium-grain isotropic graphite ( NBG-18 ), a specialize...

03/08/2026

Glensound launches Greater Divine Supernal at PLASA Show...

Glensound will launch the Greater Divine Supernal at PLASA Show 2026, extending its intelligent loudspeaker range for professional studio monitoring and live au...

03/08/2026

How Agua Tinta's Class Project Launched Her Songwriting Career

How Agua Tinta's Class Project Launched Her Songwriting Career Two years after graduating from Berklee, the songwriter has a Latin Grammy nomination, a So...

03/08/2026

Lightware UCX delivers campus-wide connectivity to Leiden...

Leiden University's new Campus Spui, located in the heart of The Hague, the diplomatic and administrative centre of the Netherlands, opened in February 2026...

03/08/2026

Bitfocus heads to the future with new investment

Bitfocus, the specialist in media control and monitoring, has received a further boost to its plans for continuing growth, particularly in Europe and North Amer...

03/08/2026

Leagues Cup kicks off tomorrow, August\u00A04, on\u00A0Apple\u00A0TV - UPDATE - Posted on 03 August 2026

Building on the momentum of a landmark year for soccer in North America, Leagues...

02/08/2026

Acustica introduce Dangerous Music BAX EQ Plugin

Classic EQ design goes virtual Following on from the launch of the 500-series version of their BAX EQ unit, Dangerous Music have now teamed up with modellin...

02/08/2026

Television, Resilience and National Security

The Government's Missing Dimension This article was originally published on the National Preparedness Commission website on 25 June 2026. ----------------...

01/08/2026

Harmonic Piano from The Crow Hill Company

Latest free Vaults instrument released The Crow Hill Company's Vaults collection offers a continually rotating selection of virtual instruments and samp...

01/08/2026

American Television Alliance Slams Deltavision Blackout on Verizon

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/08/2026

FreeWheel Debuts TV Series-Level Reporting for CTV Buyers

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/08/2026

Minnesota Timberwolves, DAZN to Launch New Streaming Offering

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/08/2026

Early Registration Opens for 2026 SMPTE Media Technology Summit

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/08/2026

NBCUniversal and YouTube Ink Landmark Distribution Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/08/2026

COW Jobs: Lead Generation Representative - Animation Services

COW Jobs: Lead Generation Representative - Animation Services Brie Clayton July 31, 2026 0 Comments Lead Generation Representative - Animation Service...

01/08/2026

Emilie Lowe Shoots Award Winning Short Film Where Dead Things Grow with Blackmagic Design

Emilie Lowe Shoots Award Winning Short Film Where Dead Things Grow with Blackmag...

01/08/2026

Early Registration Opens for the 2026 SMPTE Media Technology Summit

Early Registration Opens for the 2026 SMPTE Media Technology Summit Brie Clayton July 31, 2026 0 Comments Initial Program Announced Alongside New Medi...

31/07/2026

SVG Sit-Down: NHL's Steve Mayer on Building a Centralized Production Operation From Scratch

With an emphasis on local, the league is looking beyond the initial four teams t...

31/07/2026

Reflecting on the 2026 Summer Season of Our Sundance Institute Labs

The 2026 Sundance Institute Directors Lab fellows in Estes Park, Colorado (Photo by Gabe Rovick) Dear Friends, This has been an extraordinary year for our ar...

31/07/2026

Audiocube launch Audiocube Space

Offers 360-degree sound placement in any DAW Audiocube have just announced the launch of a new plug-in that embeds a complete 3D acoustic environment inside...

31/07/2026

Sonarworks expand SoundID VoiceAI library

10 new Chinese C-Pop voices introduced While Sonarworks are best known to many for their room-correction software, their product range also includes an inno...

31/07/2026

PSPaudioware release PSP BBDelay

Reimagines the vintage BBD sound character PSPaudioware have now officially launched the new delay plug-in that they were previewing at GearExpo UK. Said to...

31/07/2026

Savannah Bananas Hits a Broadcast Home Run with Calrec

The Savannah Bananas has built its reputation on refusing to play baseball by traditional rules, and the team's production arm Banana Ball TV (BTV) has draf...

31/07/2026

How Valuable Is TV to Smaller, Independent Cable Operators?

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

31/07/2026

Early Registration Opens for the 2026 SMPTE Media Techno...

SMPTE, the home for media professionals, technologists and engineers, today opened early registration for the 2026 Media Technology Summit (MTS) and announced i...

31/07/2026

Central Christian Church Connects Remote Production Teams...

Clear-Com announced that Central Christian Church has transformed communication across its live production operations by implementing Clear-Com's LQ Seri...

31/07/2026

Haivision To Feature Makito ONE, Falkon X4 At IBC 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

31/07/2026

ABC Stations Tout Community Support for License Renewals

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

31/07/2026

Finalists Announced for IBC2026 Innovation Awards

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

31/07/2026

IBC2026 Innovation Awards finalists unveiled honouring co...

IBC has unveiled the finalists for the IBC2026 Innovation Awards, recognising collaborative projects from around the world that solve real-world challenges and ...