Stanley Cup Final Caps Impressive NHL Broadcast Effort in Edmonton Traditional compound layout supports broadcast teams from NBC Sports (U.S.), Rogers (Canada) By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Friday, September 25, 2020 - 1:35 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
With a pair of Stanley Cup Final games on the agenda for this weekend (Game 4 on Friday, Game 5 on Saturday, both 8 p.m. ET on NBC), the National Hockey League is drawing toward the conclusion of its grand Hub Cities experiment and, thus, the successful broadcasting of its playoff season under exceptional circumstances.
Since the start of the Conference Finals this month, the NHL bubble has been reduced to a single venue: Rogers Place in Edmonton, AB, and the hybrid onsite/ at-home production model has continued to evolve.
The NHL hosts Stanley Cup Final Games 4 and 5 this weekend in Edmonton.
With more resources centralized in a single location, the league has deployed new tools and services in support of its broadcast partners (NBC in the U.S., Rogers in Canada): additional onsite production facilities, more camera angles, and added graphic enhancements (including roll-out of the league's highly anticipated puck- and player-tracking system).
It has been a long, collaborative process with our television partners and all of our end units, says Dan O'Neill, VP, arena and event operations, NHL. The collaborative nature of working with the volume of entities and giving them the platform to do their business has been great.
Condensed Compound, Limited Crews The hybrid production model in Edmonton has led to a minor increase in the size of the production compound since the league left Toronto to finish out the playoffs in the single venue. The side-by-side lineup of three trucks comprises NEP Broadcasting's ND5 (NBC Sports' top hockey truck) and Dome Productions' Silver (handling the major part of the game broadcast for Rogers and the world feed) and Unite (serving as a production B unit).
According to O'Neill, NBC Sports and Rogers are still producing the vast majority of their productions (graphics, audio mix, even on-air talent in some cases) from their respective home broadcast centers: Stamford, CT, and Toronto, respectively). However, NBC has nine or 10 crew members onsite working socially distant in ND5; Rogers has 12 or 13 crew members in its units.
More than 20 cameras are covering the action at Rogers Place in Edmonton, including five robotic cameras shooting in super-slo-mo, like this one positioned on the glass above the Tampa Bay Lighting bench.
O'Neill gives a nod to NHL Group VP, Broadcast Technology, Mark Haden, who played a critical role in coordinating the vast network of feeds and enhancements (data embedding, audio mapping, profanity-garbling systems with multiple feeds being delayed, puck/player tracking) for national and regional broadcasters dating back to the start of this effort back in June.
There is also a smattering of personnel onsite from other groups providing support, including SMT (which powers the puck- and player-tracking system and other virtual-graphics enhancements, such as dynamic statistical displays on the boards), WorldStage (the event-technology specialist assisting NHL Chief Content Officer Steve Mayer and his team in designing and building the in-arena structures that turned a hockey rink into essentially a television sound studio), and Cat Entertainment Services (providing power support not only for the compound but for the wide range of LEDs added to the arena's staging).
Versatile Camera Arsenal The NHL has upgraded its JITACAM by replacing its camera with a Sony HDC-P50, making it 4K-capable.
The NHL has been creative with camera deployment in Edmonton, having both expanded and enhanced its arsenal since the start of the Conference Finals.
The league has also relied on robotic cameras to add angles to the production without compromising personnel protocols. Currently, there are five robos on the rink, including one atop the glass of each end zone.
Providing Partners the Tools To Succeed How do we give [the networks] the opportunity to be creative on their own front, plus make it manageable, says O'Neill. The league, he adds, put in the work to give them their own unilateral cameras, individual comms paths, and raw clock/score data feeds for the networks to design and build their own graphics packages. It also allowed each network to fax each aspect of the operation on their end on game days.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
07/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/07/2026
New appointments to Screen Australia board 7 July 2026
The Albanese Labor Government has made new appointments to the Screen Australia board.
Dr Tania Chamber...
07/07/2026
The right team. The right time.' How The Killings at Parrish Station stuck t...
07/07/2026
Berklee College of Music Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's...
07/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists train the immune system to make antibodies against numerous HIV strains Preclinical findings mark progress toward a long-sought vacc...
06/07/2026
Long-developed relationships and informal access, three production models, and c...
06/07/2026
The deal follows Lumine's recent acquisition of Synamedia's video-networ...
06/07/2026
This former SportsCenter producer is shaping local-team studio coverage to surro...
06/07/2026
IMS Productions and FOX Sports deployed more than 100 cameras, 32 onboard feeds,...
06/07/2026
Lumine Group Inc. has announced the completion of its acquisition of the Video Network Business from Synamedia. The business will operate as a standalone compan...
06/07/2026
NASCAR has announced a content and commercial partnership with Motorsport Network, a motorsports and automotive media platform, to distribute NASCAR original co...
06/07/2026
Versant Media Group has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Full Swing, a sports technology company, from Bruin Capital and a group of minority investor...
06/07/2026
DAZN has announced global broadcast rights to 3ICE, a professional hockey format featuring three skaters and a goalkeeper per side, with no power plays or offsi...
06/07/2026
Bundle gains 100 new synths & more
Synth Anthology 5 the largest and most feature-packed edition of UVI's hardware synth emulation bundle, bringing toge...
06/07/2026
Available now via free firmware update
MOTU have just announced that three of their popular audio interfaces now boast official Milan Certification. The 16A...
06/07/2026
Rohde & Schwarz completes Hunter Preliminary Design Review for the Integrated Co...
06/07/2026
The R&S IMAGER from Rohde & Schwarz uses millimeter wave imaging to inspect the ...
06/07/2026
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
06/07/2026
Digital Domain Appoints Industry Veteran Patrick Davenport as Executive Vice Pre...
06/07/2026
Gravity Media USA appoints Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development
Brie Clayton July 6, 2026
0 Comments
The strategic new appointment supports...
06/07/2026
Remote Editing Without Cloud Storage in Resolve
Michael Cioni July 6, 2026
0 Comments
This is a step-by-step guide that demonstrates how to setup your...
06/07/2026
Automatic Caption Translation in Adobe Premiere Pro
Colin Smith July 6, 2026
0 Comments
Here I showcase the innovative automatic caption translation f...
06/07/2026
Flavor's First Ever Managing Director Neal Cohen Retires; Longstanding Execu...
06/07/2026
How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Medtech Without Missing a Beat What do the rehearsal room and the boardroom have in common? More than you might think...
06/07/2026
Zhongyi Optics unveils the Dreamy Zone T1 FF Cine Lens Series on Indiegogo with ...
06/07/2026
Open source AI has shown how quickly developers can innovate when models, data a...
06/07/2026
Techtel debuts insyght: making ST 2110 media discovery easy
intellisphereinsyght2026
6 July Written By Suzanne Costello
Sydney, Australia - 06 July 2026 T...
06/07/2026
Monday 6 July 2026
Sky agrees to acquire ITV Media & Entertainment, creating a ...
06/07/2026
Fresh from his World Cup heroics with Cabo Verde, Roberto Pico' Lopes will join the RT panel for Argentina v Egypt tomorrow and for the England v Norway q...
06/07/2026
Nations have long invested in domestic infrastructure to advance their economies, protect and use their data, and take advantage of technology opportunities in ...
06/07/2026
Every year, the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) reveals where thousands of AI researchers have decided to put their work.
This year's ...
06/07/2026
A death can be unsuspicious, but it has to be explained
What happened to Ke...
05/07/2026
We've gone to another level of integrating the graphics into the set architecture' - Zac Fields, SVP, Graphic Technology and Integration, FOX Sports...
05/07/2026
Browser-based and desktop apps available
Digital Sunset Studios have been busy working on an interesting project: a free software tool that provides compute...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
Stanley Cup Final Caps Impressive NHL Broadcast Effort in Edmonton Traditional compound layout supports broadcast teams from NBC Sports (U.S.), Rogers (Canada) By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
