In Final NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs Outing, NBC Sports' Ops Team Aims To Go Out on a High Note NBC's 16-year run with NHL will end after this season By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Friday, May 14, 2021 - 12:31 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
With the NHL set to depart NBC Sports after more than a decade and a half, the Peacock's sports-production and operations teams enter this year's NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs looking to cement their legacy. NBC has served as the league's primary U.S. rightsholder since 2005, but, next year, the NHL rights will shift to ESPN and Turner Sports. Nonetheless, NBC's remote-operations team remains immensely proud of all they've accomplished over the past 16 years and is set to finish up with a win.
Over the last decade, our entire NBC team can be most proud of the significant ratings growth and the fact that we have changed the way hockey games are broadcast on television by introducing new production and technical elements that have set the new standard, says NBC Sports VP, Remote Operations and EHS, James Stuart. Is it bittersweet that NHL has two new partners next year? Yes. But no one on the NBC team is hanging their head. We know we have done, and will continue to do, all we can to put the best product on the air, present the NHL in the best light, and leave the viewers wanting more.
Constant Change: NBC Continues To Manage Scheduling, COVID Challenges After a regular season fraught with COVID-related schedule changes that had NBC's operations in constant scramble mode, the team will have to be on their toes once again for the Playoffs. The divisional brackets will begin at different points over the next week: the U.S.-based East, Central, and West divisions begin on May 15-17; while the Canada-based North division is expected to get rolling on May 19 and 20, due to COVID delays. It still remains to be determined on how the league with handle the travel of Canadian and American teams across the border when the playoffs advance to the semifinal round.
Schedule adjustments throughout the year, during a time when so many are working from home, did make this season a grind for many of us, says Laura Cronin, director, NHL operations, NBC Sports Group. I am very proud of the work ethic of our team to be working multiple games in a row and never allowing the quality to slip. Playoff dates and the start of the Playoffs being impacted by the divisions' ending at different times has worked in our favor for the East and will be a last-minute push for the West.
Throughout the regular season, NBC deployed full onsite productions; REMI operations using RSN-produced clean feeds and its Stamford, CT, broadcast center; and a mix of the two.
This season has been like no other, notes Cronin. We came up with multiple plans to reduce our footprint onsite due to COVID-19 and still produce the same quality show that we've always done. The biggest change is producing so many games out of our Stamford facility and bringing back feeds and working through technical roadblocks to get it all working smoothly.
Early in the season, the production-ops team had a multitude of workflows to produce a game, but, by midseason, NBC had narrowed that down to three models because having so many variations wasn't sustainable for an entire season. In addition, fans' gradual return to arenas has presented further challenges for camera positioning and workflow during setup.
COVID-19 protocols, both in Stamford and in all of the arenas, have definitely impacted us, says Cronin, adding, Not to any detriment. It just takes a few more steps to complete tasks that would normally be second nature. That can be frustrating, but our team handled it professionally and the product never suffered. We remain just as vigilant to the safety and wellbeing of our crew, adhering to all health and safety protocols in place through the end of the Stanley Cup Final.
Game Ops: NBC To Rely on Host Feeds in Round 1, Take the Reins in Round 2 For all Round 1 games, NBC will be taking the host feeds provided by the RSNs and Sportsnet and supplementing them with its own graphics, split feeds, and unilateral cameras from site (as was the case for non-exclusive NBC regular-season broadcasts). For two of these first-round series, NBC will also have a truck side-by-side with the home shows producing its own show.
Three announcers will be onsite for each of the East series, as well as for the games in which NBC has a truck onsite. All other opening-round games will be called from Stamford, with most of the talent going back and forth between the road and the broadcast center.
NBC will have 10 manned and 10 unmanned cameras for the two Round 1 series with its onsite truck, three manned and five unmanned for the RSN-host-feed shows. NBC will also add a Sony HDC-4800 high-speed camera for both Rounds 1 and 2.
For all following rounds, NBC will serve as the primary broadcaster for all U.S.-based games and take feeds from Sportsnet for the Canadian games since NBC's crew is currently not permitted to cross the border. Two or three NBC announcers will be onsite for each of the U.S. series Round 2, and the Canadian games will be called from Stamford. Announcers will also be onsite for the third round and the Stanley Cup Final, but plans are still to be determined for games in Canada.
NBC will deploy 20 cameras (10 manned/10 unmanned) for Round 1 productions, 22 (12/10) for Round 3, and 30 (15/15) for the Stanley Cup Final (on par with the 2019 Final).
Data Tsunami: NHL Player-, Puck-Tracking System Drives Enhanced Graphics The 2021 regular season marked the first in which the league's player- and puck-tracking system had been installed in all 31 arenas. NBC, which had full control on exclusive national games and was able to supp
North America Stories
07/05/2026
Multi-year partnership positions Victory+ as a free home for Dallas Cowboys orig...
07/05/2026
From sideline reporting to directing and producing, the talented sophomore is building a well-rounded foundation for a career in live sports production
In the ...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital has received two Future Best of Show awards at NAB Show 2026. The COBALT blueCORE platform was recognized by TV Tech, and the COBALT PACIFIC ULL-...
07/05/2026
ESPN analyst Mina Kimes will host the televised semifinals and finals of the 202...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI, the global film streaming platform, has selected Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner. Bitmovin's encoding infrastru...
07/05/2026
NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and the U.S. Soccer Federation have announced...
07/05/2026
Angel City Football Club (ACFC) and Victory have announced a regional broadcast partnership bringing live match coverage to fans across the greater Los Angeles...
07/05/2026
Spiideo has announced the launch of AI Highlights inside Spiideo Play, its automated sports production platform. AI Highlights combines video, event data, audio...
07/05/2026
Leostream Corporation has announced a unified remote access ecosystem for high-p...
07/05/2026
The Atlanta Dream has partnered with Victory to stream all locally broadcast Dream games for free, expanding the team's digital distribution strategy and g...
07/05/2026
Riedel Communications has announced the appointment of Marc Engroff as Chief Fin...
07/05/2026
SES and ARD, Germany's largest public broadcasting network, have announced a long-term extension of their satellite distribution partnership through 2039. U...
07/05/2026
UpLight Technologies delivers a flexible video and lighting system for a new televised sportLaunching the Pro Cheer League required more than creating a compell...
07/05/2026
Full Day Productions and GSE Worldwide have announced Spikes Under the Lights, a...
07/05/2026
Two multi-role L3Harris products - the Red Wolf launched effects vehicle and SK...
07/05/2026
L3Harris will be developing key features of a secure and resilient digital infra...
07/05/2026
Alysa Liu and Shohei Ohtani Help Drive Viewership as 91 of the Top 100 Broadcast...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital Wins Two Future Best of Show Awards at 2026 NAB Show
Manufacturer Recognized by TV Tech and TVBEurope for Innovation in signal processing
Cobal...
07/05/2026
Software and hardware platforms, AI power and user-friendliness on show...
07/05/2026
Intinor will demonstrate its latest technical enhancements for the Direkt series at BroadcastAsia 2026. With a continued focus on reliable contribution and remo...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI has chosen Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner, replacing MUBI's legacy on premises encoding setup to improve scalab...
07/05/2026
Meet Graduates from Berklees Class of 2026 Members of this years graduating class reflect on their proudest moments at Berklee and look ahead to whats next.
...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
At BroadcastAsia 2026, Interra Systems will demonstrate its latest innovations in automated quality control (QC), real-time monitoring, and captioning. The comp...
07/05/2026
At this year's Broadcast Asia, PlayBox Neo is set to unveil recent innovations across its PlayBox Neo Suite and integrated range of broadcast media solution...
07/05/2026
Strategic three-year partnership marks delivery phase of BFBS' next-generation media vision
Media organisation and military charity BFBS (British Forces Br...
07/05/2026
Amagi, the agentic industry cloud platform for unified broadcast, streaming, and monetization, today announced the availability of its In-Content Ads offering v...
07/05/2026
Lightware Visual Engineering has developed Rack Taurus for rack-based environments such as education and corporate training spaces. It enables clean and simple ...
07/05/2026
Jigsaw24, the UK's leading media equipment supplier and systems integrator, will showcase its expanded end-to-end workflow capabilities at MPTS 2026, signal...
07/05/2026
Ease Live, an Evertz company, today announced that it has been granted a US Patent for its proprietary graphical overlay technology, the foundation for interact...
07/05/2026
Test & measurement innovator Leader Electronics of Europe will present an extensive range of Leader, PHABRIX and LeaderPhabrix test and measurement solutions at...
07/05/2026
At Broadcast Asia 2026 (Stand 5H3 8), LiveU is redefining live production with its most powerful IP-video EcoSystem to date built to help broadcasters and con...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Recreating the 1974 Doctor Who Time Tunnel in After Effects
Graham Quince May 6, 2026
0 Comments
The Time Tunnel from Doctor Who titles is one of th...
07/05/2026
Back to All News
Red Chillies Entertainment and Netflix Present the Trailer of ...
07/05/2026
Less typing, more tanking.
Faster logins mean more time in the gaming action - and this week provides GeForce NOW members with a smoother path straight into th...
06/05/2026
Gravity Media Chief RF Communications Engineer Glenn Willems uses Wisycom RF over Fiber and wireless solutions across major cycling events and international mar...
06/05/2026
A Sennheiser Spectera module is now available in Bitfocus Companion and Buttons, enabling direct integration of Spectera with the two software platforms. The mo...
06/05/2026
Ted Turner, the visionary media entrepreneur whose appetite for disruption helpe...
06/05/2026
The streamer aims to provide a fully integrated Spanish language experience with...
06/05/2026
Polands Miecznik-class frigates are part of the largest contract in Polish shipbuilding history. (Image Credit: PGZ Stocznia Wojenna)...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/05/2026
Riedel Communications today announced the expansion of its leadership structure as part of a strategic initiative to strengthen both its operational management ...
06/05/2026
For nearly three decades, Veteran Production Sound Mixer and Five-time Emmy Award Winner Dirk Sciarrotta has helped define the sonic identity of the long-runnin...
In Final NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs Outing, NBC Sports' Ops Team Aims To Go Out on a High Note NBC's 16-year run with NHL will end after this season By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
