2022 Winter Classic: In Record-Breaking Cold, Turner Sports Rises to the Occasion of Its First Marquee NHL Event Crews withstood sub-zero temperatures to deliver unique regular-season event By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Tuesday, January 4, 2022 - 12:54 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
With an official temperature of minus 6 F at puck drop, the 2022 Winter Classic, at Target Field in Minneapolis on Saturday evening, established a new record for the coldest outdoor game in the history of the National Hockey League.
For Turner Sports, taking on live production of the unique and prestigious annual event for the first time, it was a baptism by fire?
We've had our bit of cold nights on baseball, and it can get chilly, but by no stretch have we ever experienced that type of cold for an outdoor production, says Chris Brown, VP, operations and technology, Turner Sports. It was definitely very different, but it was a good different. It lends a lot of perspective. I think It took a lot of the older Turner folks back to the days of doing the NFL.
The 2022 NHL Winter Classic took place at Target Field in Minneapolis. Temperature at puck drop was minus 6 F. (Photo: Paul Hemming, Turner Sports)
Over the first 12 Winter Classics, dating to New Year's Day 2008, previous rightsholder NBC Sports had its fair share of cold, but the temperature never dipped below zero. The coldest Winter Classic game prior to Saturday was the 2014 edition at Michigan Stadium, when the temperature hit 13 F (with snow). Of the 33 total outdoor games the league has hosted, only one was played in zero degree temperature: the Heritage Classic at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, AB, in November 2003.
So, though thrilled to be covering its first Winter Classic, the Turner Sports crew was sure going to earn it in their rookie season.
According to Brown, necessary protocols were put into place to ensure the safety of personnel and equipment throughout the game. Crew members weren't afraid to speak up, and, when someone needed a break to warm up, one was granted without question.
The crew was made up largely of Turner's standard traveling regular-season crew, with locals filling in where needed. For many, the thrill of working the event was only amplified by the extreme temps.
The cool thing, says Brown, is that people really wanted to be a part of it. I think there was a willingness to endure the cold - up to a certain point.
Handheld-camera operator Matt Gould (left) and game director Paul Hemming braved the cold during a walkthrough prior to the event on Saturday. (Photo: Paul Hemming, Turner Sports)
As for the gear, the operations team deployed everything from space heaters to heated blankets to keep equipment operational. The cold did present some challenges, including with the on-ice shallow-depth-of-field rig, on which both the gimbal and camera battery struggled to perform in the cold. The camera was still used throughout the broadcast, just not for stretches as lengthy as the production team would have liked.
You worry about lenses sticking and servos slowing down, says Brown. Where applicable, you try to apply heat to help some of that out. But, by far and large, everything performed pretty well.
Skycam provided one of 36 camera angles that made to air during the 2022 Winter Classic in Minneapolis. (Photo: Paul Hemming, Turner Sports)
Cold aside, Turner Sports rolled in with a production complement befitting one of the most eye-catching events in sports television today. More than 30 cameras were deployed; according to game director Paul Hemming, 36 camera angles made it to air. The complement included 12 manned-robotics cameras (provided by Fletcher), five unmanned robos, four hard cameras, three handhelds (RF was supplied by CP Communications), POVs mounted on each bench and penalty box, a Skycam (which has not been deployed many times - if ever - at Target Field), and a fixed-wing plane from Winged Vision (piloted by Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Bob Mikkelson).
Since this was Turner's first foray into the event, the production and operations teams relied heavily on NHL guidance in drawing up the production plan. The league picked a number of potential camera positions and presented them to the production team for review. The crew - including Turner Director, Technical Operations, Lee Estroff - also visited Minneapolis for two site surveys in the last few months of the year. Turner Tech Manager Eric Grossman is a veteran of the NHL and brought a lot of experience with outdoor events of this nature.
It's a balance, Brown says. We want to be able to push the boundaries on a game like this but with the reminder that this is still a regular-season game. We can't break a number of rules as if this is an exhibition game. So there's a healthy mix of respecting the game, and, while it's supposed to be fun for the players and the fans, there's a boundary of respect that needs to remain.
In the truck compound outside Target Field, the game was run out of NEP Supershooter 8. The IP-based, 4K- and HDR-capable truck typically works the NBA circuit for Turner Sports, but a bit of a break in the schedule made it available for this event. Also onsite was NEP ND6, which is slated to take over as the primary truck for the second half of the NHL season through the Conference Final.
All in all, the event certainly presented a substantial challenge, but the Turner production team met it impressively, even with some last-minute adjustments due to rising COVID numbers across the country. The future remains bright for one of sports TV's most mesmerizing spectacles, which appears to be in good hands for at least the next six years.
Two of NEP's newer trucks, Sharpshooter 8 and ND6, held down the production compound outside Targe
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
28/08/2025
IBC stand 5.F81
Wowza to Reveal Next-Gen Video Streaming Innovations at IBC 2025
Amsterdam, August 28, 2025 Wowza, a leader in video streaming infrastructur...
2022 Winter Classic: In Record-Breaking Cold, Turner Sports Rises to the Occasion of Its First Marquee NHL Event Crews withstood sub-zero temperatures to deliver unique regular-season event By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
