NHL Network Showcase Marks New Chapter in Live Game Production for League's Cable Net

NHL Network Showcase Marks New Chapter in Live Game Production for League's Cable Net 16-game package deploys the network's own talent and production facilities By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor

Friday, March 12, 2021 - 1:09 pm

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Last month, NHL Network took a massive step forward in its evolution, launching its first live production of a regular-season game using its own on-air talent and production facilities. Branded NHL Network Showcase domestically and the NHL European Game of the Week internationally, the 16-game slate uses a clean feed from the home team's RSN, with broadcasts produced at the NHL Network/MLB Network studios in Secaucus, NJ, and featuring NHL Network graphics, branding, commentators, and pre/postgame and intermission shows.

The conversation has been ongoing for years about whether and when NHL Network should [produce] games, explains Eric Eisenberg, VP, programming and operations, NHL Network. Coming into this season, we felt we had hit the point where it was the appropriate time. We also were able to work with the league to build out a schedule that made sense and showcased a lot of teams that wouldn't typically be featured on national broadcasts. As we continue to find different ways to engage fans and build different properties, this year felt like the right time to start looking at our own live games.

While production of live regular-season games is nothing new for NHL Network, which has carried games since it launched in 2008, this marks the first time the network is delivering its own branded broadcast rather than just airing the local RSN's feed. This weekend, the NHL Network Showcase hits a high point with a double-header featuring New York Rangers-Boston Bruins on Saturday at 1 p.m. ET and Arizona Coyotes-Minnesota Wild on Sunday at 2 p.m.

Live From Secaucus: Inside the Production Workflow To produce each broadcast, NHL Network is taking in a clean program feed from the home team's RSN and using it as the basis of the presentation. In Secaucus, a dedicated production crew integrates NHL Network graphics, animations, scorebug, and branding, as well as commercial insertion. The workflow is similar to the MLB Network Showcase games produced in Secaucus during last year's pandemic-stricken season; the NHL games, however, do not include two ancillary cameras for the network to use at its discretion.

A dedicated crew leverages a clean feed from local RSNs to produce NHL Network Showcase games from a control room at the network's Secaucus, NJ, broadcast center.

This is the first step off for us, notes Jacob Soto, VP, engineering and IT, MLB Network/NHL Network. Because of everything that is happening in the world with the pandemic, we're starting out by taking the RSN feed, and then we will grow into it. It just doesn't make sense right now to do all the games we have on the slate for this year as full [onsite] productions. Plus, we had a lot of lessons learned last year [from the enhanced world-feed MLB productions], and we were able to invest that into the NHL Network Showcase.

Play-by-play announcer Stephen Nelson and a rotating team of analysts call the action off-monitor from Studio K, and the pre/postgame and intermission shows are produced at The Rink, NHL Network's primary studio in Secaucus. The monitor from which Nelson and his analyst call the action displays the program feed, and the production team works closely with the RSN crew to ensure that talent is aware of upcoming replays and segments before they're played out.

The RSNs have been great, says Chris Pfeiffer, senior coordinating producer, remote events, MLB Network/NHL Network. The communication has been solid on game day, [with their] helping us by tipping us off on replay packages and rollouts - anything that [we can] pass on to our announcers so they're not surprised. If we're all doing our job the right way, the viewers at home won't notice the difference. We believe we've done that, so it has been a solid first few weeks.

Across the Pond: Launching the NHL European Game of the Week In addition to the domestic broadcast, NHL Network provides a separate feed for the NHL European Game of the Week. Secaucus is using a split-feed model: whenever a branded graphic or element is integrated into the show, each feed automatically receives either the Network Showcase or the European Game of the Week version. In addition, NHL Network is producing several international-specific elements, including a show open that is completely independent of the NHL Network Showcase open and focuses on international players.

That split feed was a little bit of a test for us leading up to that first weekend, notes Pfeiffer. But it has gone very smooth the last few weeks. [It allows us to] focus specifically on international players and makes [the European broadcast] more specific to that audience.

Building on World Juniors and the Evolution of NHL Network Production of the slate of Showcase games follows NHL Network's exclusive coverage of the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championship, in which Team USA win the Gold Medal over Canada in a championship game that garnered plenty of attention. For it, NHL Network used a workflow similar to that used for Showcase games to produce every Team USA game, with Nelson handling play-by-play from Secaucus.

The World Juniors has been a massive undertaking for us for years and has continued to grow, says Eisenberg. This year, with the lack of NHL hockey during the pandemic, it received even more focus and had an even bigger impact. We felt really good and comfortable about the team and the setup that we had to support it. I think this year's Juniors really did solidify things and gave us confidence that we had all the pieces put together

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2021/03/12/nhl-network-showcase-marks-new-...
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