NHL's Latest Player-, Puck-Tracking Efforts Aim To Revolutionize Hockey Production (and Viewing) Workflows speed the turnaround time and simplify the packaging and presentation of advanced data for broadcast By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital Tuesday, February 12, 2019 - 4:26 pm
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For Keith Horstman, this is all very familiar.
After more than two decades at the NBA and playing a pivotal role in development of the league's robust player- and real-time data-tracking system, the NHL's VP of technology now finds himself at the epicenter of the next generation of data, statistics, and video visualization for the sport of hockey.
Since he joined the NHL last spring, player and puck tracking has occupied the top of his to-do list, and the past couple of months have begun to show the fruits of that labor. After extensive tests, fans got a peek at what the next generation in the hockey-viewing experience could look like during last month's NHL All-Star Game in San Jose, CA.
The NHL, in association with its enterprise-applications-software and database partner SAP, executed a workflow for major rightsholders NBC Sports and Rogers and the in-venue production team at SAP Arena, streamlining the packaging and display of all this valuable data in a way that was exciting for hockey fans to consume.
Player and puck tracking is here! #HiTechHockey
Get to see this @SAP technology live during tomorrow night s @Honda #NHLAllStar Game at 8:00p ET on @nbc, @CBC, @Sportsnet & @TVASports! pic.twitter.com/uPD8vSSYBM
NHL (@NHL) January 25, 2019
Using a chip-based system, the league tracks the puck and players on the ice in a more seamless and comprehensive way than ever before. Marrying the new tracking information with its existing in-house Hockey Information Tracking System (HITS), which tallies all the essentials to properly log and score a hockey game (time-on-ice, face-offs won/lost, shots on goal, missed shots, shot types, penalties, etc.), the league and stats and broadcast-graphics partner SMT are simplifying the packaging and visualization of data in producing on-screen visuals that are both compelling to the viewer and easy to integrate for the producer.
Broadcasters dropped in IDs (or pointers) that followed players, trails of players or the puck, and advanced performance analytics at or close to real time. Even NBC Sports Digital streamed out an alternative version of its broadcast dedicated to showcasing this rich data.
Horstman sees few sports - if any - that would benefit more than hockey from the data-tracking revolution in sports, and he believes that the experience at the All-Star Game was just the tip of the iceberg.
The nature of tracking data really associates with the game more [in hockey] than in a baseball or football game, he explains. It goes back to the way we do stats, the old way of putting in single events. Now we've got the fluid flow of data for the continuous game. That sets hockey apart from everything else. Not only did the player score from this spot, but how did he get there, or how did the goalie come across the crease to make a save? There's much more we can do with the fullness of the data in this sport than you can with other sports.
The Dawn of a Data Revolution?
The NHL's efforts at All-Star naturally drew the attention of many news entities and garnered some tech-y headlines, but, for the league, it's about much more than just showing off a few flashy new toys at a tentpole event. This is a system that, when completed, is expected to revolutionize the entire stats and data-visualization process at every level of the league.
In that future, integrating the current HITS system with the new tracking system in an environment where everything from player identification to data distribution is automated will completely change the way the league both documents on-ice play and distributes data to its wide array of partners.
There's still much work to be done, and the league's main focus right now is on automating a lot of steps that are currently manual. Today, activating tracking of the puck is a manual process. When the new process is refined, the league will install a series of sensors on the boards near the penalty-box door where referees obtain a puck to be put into play for a face-off. When the new puck passes through that door, the system will activate it and validate data obtained from it for downstream use.
Integration with the clock is also vital and ultimately ties the entire process together. With a tracking system that can essentially log all the actions taking place on the ice by both players and the puck, adding synchronization with the game clock essentially makes the finished product the league's official comprehensive box score of the game.
Ultimately, all of the data will join up in a single server and will do all downstream distribution of HITS data and tracking from there, says Horstman. We will include an intelligence engine using HITS data, tracking data, and outside algorithms to produce new types of data.
This would also change the role of the game's statisticians. No longer will they be loggers of a game's events but will instead be official auditors of the data being captured.
The league is currently doing a thorough scan at each of its arenas to establish exact coordinates of the ice surface, establishing a foundation for the player- and puck-tracking layer of the system. According to Horstman, about 75% of the arenas have been scanned, with the rest to be completed in the coming month. After the scan, a site survey is done of the arena, and installation of the system can begin. The goal is to have all 31 NHL arenas outfitted with the system prior to the start of the 2019-20 season in the fall.
According to Horstman, hockey is pe
