An Inside Look at the NHL's Upcoming Puck and Player Tracking The capability will be in 22 arenas by New Year's, on every Stanley Cup Playoffs game in April By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - 12:58 pm
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When the NHL announced last month that it had selected SMT (SportsMEDIA Technology) to deliver its new puck- and player-tracking system, it marked a major step forward in what has been a long odyssey for the league. With the season now under way, NHL and SMT efforts are in full swing with plans to have the system installed in 22 arenas before the New Year and available for every single NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs game come April. The system will be installed and fully functional in all 31 arenas when the puck drops on the 2020-21 season.
I'm happy to say that we are on schedule, says NHL CTO Peter DelGiacco. There's a team of 20 people, and we all have a shared vision. So I'm confident that we will be able to deliver a system that's going to have a major impact on the way people consume hockey.
The NHL tested its puck- and player-tracking system at the 2019 All-Star Game in February featuring SMT's OPTICS virtual graphics.
SMT has been tapped to provide the full development and implementation of puck and player tracking, as well as handling data integration, distribution, and virtual-graphics generation. The NHL's deal with SMT comes after it broke off its partnership with its previous tracking-technology partner on the project Jogmo World Corp., which was battling financial issues, in September. However, with SMT in tow, the league remains on schedule to launch the system in time for the Playoffs in April.
We're going to generate an incredible amount of new data that has never existed before and use it to create new and enhanced experiences for everyone in the NHL community, starting with our broadcast partners, says Dave Lehanski, SVP, business development and innovation, NHL. We believe that we are now positioned to take a massive step forward with regard to the way that the NHL game is presented and consumed.
A Challenge and an Opportunity: Tracking a Sport Unlike Any Other
SMT is already entrenched in the NHL's technical backbone, having designed and operated the league's HITS (Hockey Information and Tracking System) official scoring system, as well as providing high-end graphics packages for the league's primary broadcasters, including NBC in the U.S. The company also provided the broadcast graphics and data overlays used during an introductory trial run of the system at last season's All-Star Game in San Jose, CA.
However, a comprehensive tracking system represents a significant challenge for the game of hockey. Unlike the other major U.S. leagues, hockey is the only team sport in which players enter and exit the field of play without a break in the game. In addition, hockey games feature nearly constant action throughout 60 minutes of gameplay - unlike an NFL game, which averages less than 15 minutes of gameplay during a three-hour game window.
There's an insane amount of variability in our game broadcasts, says Lehanski. It was clear to us from the beginning that, if we wanted to tell some of these other, deeper stories about the game, it would need to occur in real time and would have to happen while the game is taking place.
In addition, the league is keenly aware of the multitude of opportunities this system will create beyond just game broadcasts. The NHL plans to use the data for new metrics to power content on NHL digital platforms (including, potentially, betting outlets in the future), as well as coaching and scouting applications.
We will now have the data to drastically enhance the experience of everyone in the NHL community, adds Lehanski. Obviously, we're focused on our broadcasters right now, but, of course, there's a number of direct-to-fan opportunities: [such as] betting applications, free-to-play games, and fantasy. And then, of course, we're thinking about our coaches and our general managers through applications that we're going to build or further enhance in our integrated coaching system.
How It Works: OASIS at the Center of It All
Once installed in all 31 arenas, the tracking system will gather the data for every single game, generating nearly 1 million 3D coordinates/data points over the course of a single regulation game.
In addition to continuing to provide the HITS scoring system, SMT's OASIS Platform is driving the ingest, aggregation, and distribution of data from all games. OASIS acts as a meeting point for the tracking data, HITS, the official clock, and score. OASIS also features an artificial-intelligence (AI) engine, which can calculate in real time all the events taking place on the ice.
Broadcasters will have access to a wealth of data (as NBC Sports did at the 2019 NHL All-Star Game) once the tracking system launches for the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
OASIS organizes a league's data and video ecosystem as Level Zero, Level One, Level Two [systems], SMT CEO/founder Gerard J. Hall explains. Level Zero is any system that creates data and or video, including the puck- and player tracking system, the HITS official scoring system, any video from cameras. The output of those systems feeds into Level One of the OASIS Platform, where they are all synchronized to a common timecode. Level One also provides an artificial-intelligence engine that infers all sorts of additional events automatically. The data and video that is combined and synchronized at Level One is then available for real-time push and pull via APIs to all Level Two systems and Level Two consumers of the Level One combined data and video: for example, broadcasters, teams, coaches, social media, and NHL partners.
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An Inside Look at the NHL's Upcoming Puck and Player Tracking The capability will be in 22 arenas by New Year's, on every Stanley Cup Playoffs game in April By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
