
NHL Pause Binge Dives Into The Archives to Give Hockey Fans a Welcome Escape in the Age of Coronavirus Cloud-based workflows help producers and editors work with large video files from their homes By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Tuesday, March 31, 2020 - 2:55 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
With North Americans deep into their third week of quarantine as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, many are looking for a welcome distraction from the stresses of the current times.
To help bring a sense of normalcy to their fans, the NHL has launched NHL Pause Binge, a campaign across NHL.com, the league's YouTube channel, and its various social channels that curates a robust collection of some of the NHL's greater pieces of video content from its rich history.
Content, right now, is what people are yearning for and desiring and we really put a lot of effort into giving people a bit more of their fill of hockey, says Steve Mayer, chief content officer for the NHL. This has been quite an interesting time and we think we are putting out some pretty cool things and we'll continue to do so all the way through the pause. We're trying to provide people at home who are going through some really difficult times with joy and entertainment. We know they love the NHL and we're trying to give them something they will enjoy.
The chief goal of NHL Pause Binge is to put all of this treasured content under one roof and make it exceptionally easy for users to find and watch. The campaign spotlights a range of content, including features from NHL Original Productions (which includes the acclaimed series Road to the NHL Winter Classic, Behind the Glass, and NHL All Access ) as well as full-length classic games dating all the way back to the 1950s.
NHL.com and NHL's social team are also taking deep dives into the archive, releasing content plans designed to give fans happy memories to watch, but also activities and contests that they can actively participate in. For example, Greatest Moments of the NHL Season So Far features a tournament style bracket of the year's best moments for fans to watch and vote on.
The @Avalanche advance to the next round.
The Battle of Alberta resumes today! Who ya got, @cmcdavid97 s six-point night or @TKACHUKycheese_ s between-the-legs goal?
VOTE
NHL (@NHL) March 31, 2020
According to Mayer, its been an important piece of the effort to remain sensitive to the current state of the world's struggles. In the immediate aftermath following the postponement of the season, the NHL content team wasn't overly aggressive in its video push, instead leaning more on retweeting and interacting with players and personalities who were reacting to the new environment. It wasn't until about March 23 where Mayer and his team really started to turn on the content spigot.
In the sports world, everything happened so immediately, says Mayer. That one night changed the sports world forever. So, we immediately set the group on the idea trail. One of the biggest messages from me was that we want to stay respectful. A lot of people are going through a lot right now, including our players and everyone on the team level, and we need to respect that. Let's just naturally let the first ten days pass.
In that time, in order to feed the NHL Pause Binge campaign, the operations team behind the NHL's content machine needed to lean heavily into what, fortunately, are some already existing cloud-based workflows. Fueled partially by the league office's move to its new headquarters at One Manhattan West in the growing Hudson Yards, the NHL has been undergoing a digital transformation. The league has been migrating many of its core IT services to the cloud and was already seeing (even prior to the coronavirus) a significant uptick in the internal adoption of services like file-sharing, editing collaboration tools, video conferencing, and task management software.
Naturally, all NHL staff are currently working remotely from their homes but, according to an NHL spokeperson, most of the systems that service the editorial groups were already securely accessible from outside the office. The real challenge was ensuring that all producers and editors were outfitted with the equipment and most importantly the Internet connectivity to handle this new archival-based workload.
When we recognized this was as serious as it is, one of the first things we said as a group was how do we remotely stay in business, says Mayer. I think we were super smart in trying to be ahead of that. We made it so that our producers and editors could access our internal servers to be able to not only take down games and highlights and be essentially be able to edit as if they were in our office. Our IT and studio operations department were just incredible in allowing [our team] access. The team has been unbelievable in terms of thinking ahead and getting our entire group ready to go. We're working around the clock. Honestly, we need to settle down with the new ideas because we are getting maxed out.
NHL IT assisted in upgrading the Internet download and upload speeds within the homes of its remote workforce. In addition, the league is leveraging its asset management system (Reach Engine by Levels Beyond), video file transfer system (Signiant Media Shuttle) and content file-sharing workflows (Box).
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/04/2026
Designed for synchronized multi-stream playback, low-latency delivery, and real-time analytics, MATCH introduces a unified viewing experience for sports broadca...
07/04/2026
Berklee Students to Honor George Martin with Performance of Original Scores The orchestra, led by associate professor Xander Rovang, will perform several work...
06/04/2026
Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...
06/04/2026
From high school sports all the way up to the major leagues, building high-quali...
06/04/2026
Quickplay, an AI company for the media and entertainment industry, has been accepted into the Advanced tier of the TwelveLabs Ecosystem Partner Program. Quickpl...
06/04/2026
Grass Valley has announced the Future Playmakers Program, a global initiative to...
06/04/2026
El l der de operaciones impulsa la producci n en estudio mientras encuentra insp...
06/04/2026
The ops leader helps lead the charge in studio for the Spanish-language broadcas...
06/04/2026
Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...
06/04/2026
The National Hockey League (NHL), in partnership with Verizon and the New Jersey Devils, today announced the opening of the NHL Innovation Lab powered by Verizo...
06/04/2026
Rock League, a new professional curling league, has announced that ESPN+ will stream its inaugural 2026 season for fans in the United States. The first Rock Lea...
06/04/2026
Advanced Systems Group has announced the appointment of Andrea (Andy) Cummis as Vice President of Systems Design and Engineering. In this role, she will lead de...
06/04/2026
Backed by Bolt Ventures, the venture brings Bryson DeChambeau, Grant Horvat, and...
06/04/2026
With this environment we can start that collaboration even earlier because we ca...
06/04/2026
Like the immortal lives of vampires, some stories never really end. That's t...
06/04/2026
As podcasting continues to evolve, growth increasingly means building beyond aud...
06/04/2026
Multiband dynamics plug-in enhanced
California-based developer FSK Audio have released a significant update for their innovative multiband dynamics processo...
06/04/2026
Share official & user-created full-rig presets
IK Multimedia's latest TONEX update makes it possible for users of the popular amp and effects modelling ...
06/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
06/04/2026
Dalet Showcases Dalia Agentic AI and End-to-End Media Workflows at NAB Show 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Dalet, a leading technology and...
06/04/2026
OpenDrives Shows Off Sports Expertise in Sports Business Hub located in NAB Show...
06/04/2026
Proton to Demonstrate 3D Application at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Yet further creative potential unleashed through innovation in ...
06/04/2026
Autoscript Highlights Voice-Driven Prompting and PTZ Solutions at NAB 2026
Brie Clayton April 6, 2026
0 Comments
Experience Autoscript Voice, PTZ prom...
06/04/2026
Mediaproxy Highlights Significant Enhancements to its LogServer suite at NAB Sho...
06/04/2026
Wayne, N.J., April 6th, 2026 Phantom High-Speed announces the release of PCC 4...
06/04/2026
April 6th, 2026
TRIBECA STUDIOS AND LILLY ANNOUNCE WINNERS OF INAUGURAL VITAL...
06/04/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Expands Kids Entertainment Lineup With Playground App ...
05/04/2026
Tackles all reported bugs!
SoundBridge have just announced the launch of a new update that introduces a couple of minor changes to their remote collaboratio...
04/04/2026
The University of Arizona's Men's Basketball team has only loss twice th...
04/04/2026
1080p HDR arrives, a new generation of storytelling tools takes center stage, an...
04/04/2026
Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...
04/04/2026
Faster, cleaner and more intuitive than ever
The control software for Flock Audio's digitally controlled patchbay systems has just been treated to an up...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/04/2026
DHD Introduces AI-Based Audio Noise Reduction to XD3 IP Core
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
The accompanying image shows the rear panel of the ...
04/04/2026
Macnica Redefines ST 2110 Flexibility with Two Speeds on One Card
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
New for NAB Show 2026, MEP100 SmartNIC now sup...
04/04/2026
Unified Media Workflows for Story-Centric Production
Brie Clayton April 3, 2026
0 Comments
Framelight X unifies field capture, editing and publishing ...
03/04/2026
Michigan's Fab Five will reunite for an alternate presentation of the Mich...