Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

NHL Puck Drop 2021: NHL on TNT Debuts With High-Speed Cameras, Tracking-Fueled Graphics

13/10/2021

NHL Puck Drop 2021: NHL on TNT Debuts With High-Speed Cameras, Tracking-Fueled Graphics With more than 20 cameras per game, Turner Sports brings ambitious' plan to hockey coverage By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital

Wednesday, October 13, 2021 - 3:15 pm

Print This Story | Subscribe

Story Highlights

It's a new era for the National Hockey League in the U.S. Tonight, Turner Sports debuts as a national rightsholder for the league, with TNT carrying a doubleheader of the New York Rangers visiting the Washington Capitals at 7:30 p.m. ET and the Colorado Avalanche hosting the Chicago Blackhawks at 10:30 p.m.

Although Turner's agreement with the league is for the NHL's B package, the NHL on TNT schedule is loaded. It includes 25 Wednesday nights throughout the season and marquee tentpole events like the 2022 Winter Classic (Minneapolis) on Jan. 1, the 2022 Stadium Series (Nashville) on Feb. 26, and the 2022 Heritage Classic (Hamilton, ON) on March 13. Turner will also help carry the Stanley Cup Playoffs and host the Stanley Cup Final in three of the seven years covered by the rights agreement.

It's a sizable investment of time and resources, and the Turner Sports team is hitting the ground running. For game coverage, Turner Sports VP, Sports Production and Technical Operations, Chris Brown describes the team's plan as extremely ambitious.

Game production will, over the course of the season, lean aggressively into leveraging player- and puck-tracking data provided by the league and displaying unique graphic enhancements, including dynamic line changes (where tracking data can be used to monitor shift times and display lineup changes in real time) and a virtual power-play clock projected onto the ice (similar to the virtual shot clock used by NBA on TNT).

Our goal is to find ways to inform the diehard fan in ways that they haven't been informed before, says Brown, while also providing information for the casual fan that is trying to learn the sport.

In 2019, NBA on TNT debuted a virtual shot graphic projected onto the playing surface. Turner Sports is looking to add a similar execution on the ice for power plays on NHL on TNT.

Onsite, the camera complements rely on super-slow-motion cameras, with more deployed than for a typical show. Of the 25 camera feeds (20 are originated by Turner; five are blue-line cams and net-cam feeds provided by the league), from eight to 11 units on a given night will be high-frame-rate cameras. Brown says those acquisition devices offer a smoother look for a sport that moves extremely fast.

This has been the production request to answer the question, How do you portray the speed and fluidity that this game presents? says Brown.

Coordinating directly with the league on venues and standard game-broadcast operations has proved critical to helping Turner boot up this property in a relatively short time. To help out on the remote technical side, Turner added Eric Grossman, a veteran of hockey broadcasting, as lead tech manager.

One of the biggest things with the NHL is developing all of the new workflows that are going to have to surround it, says Brown. [That's] not just in the remote environment but in the studio as well because of the confluence of highlight operations. There's tons we have been trudging through to pull this all together. We're also doing this while maintaining the technical quality for all the productions that we do and giving each property its just attention.

NHL on TNT games are directed by Paul Hemming (who joins the Turner family after four years directing Carolina Hurricanes games for Bally Sports South/Fox Sports Carolinas). Kevin Brown and Joe Whelan will alternate in the producer's chair. The primary mobile production unit that will be used throughout the season is NEP ND5.

Graphics Package Designed To Stay Out of the Way' In addition to all the necessary technical infrastructure, one of the more substantial - and exciting - parts of beginning to broadcast an entirely new property is development of the on-screen look.

The Turner Sports Creative team was tasked with building an entire graphics package from scratch for the new NHL season, including insert graphics, full animations, studio graphics, and, of course, the in-game scorebug.

The NHL on TNT debuted a version of its scorebug during a preseason broadcast this month.

Hockey is such a fun sport to design for, says Jordan Shorthouse, VP/creative director, Turner Sports. There's so much energy, and the challenge is ensuring that fast-paced energy makes it onto the screen for the viewers. When it came to designing the insert package, we just wanted to make something that was unobtrusive, stayed out of the way, and was easy, simple, and clean. We wanted the viewers to stay focused on the action on the ice and not get confused about where they have to look to find stats.

The scorebug is a simple design, featuring solid colors and clean presentation of team logos. When it comes to designing scorebugs, which receive the most significant amount of airtime of any element in a graphics package, Shorthouse says, the creative process can be lengthy when team elements to include are debated. Are there logos? Is it just team tri-codes? A great scorebug, he notes, manages to integrate both pleasingly.

These logos are so beautiful and, to the hardcore fans, don't need the tri-codes, says Shorthouse, who has worked on graphics for Turner Broadcasting for more than two decades. They know who is playing based on the logos. However, you want to build something that new viewers can understand. For that reason, tri-codes are necessary. In the perfect world, you find the way to do both without making the bug too big. That's the challenge.

For major animations, Turner Sports worked with Toronto-based design
LINK: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2021/10/13/nhl-puck-drop-2021-nhl-on-tnt-d...
See more stories from svg

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

04/07/2026

Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in Dolby Cinemas Across Japan, Presented in Dolby Atmos and Dolby ...

April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...

02/07/2026

SVG Students To Watch: Abby Finke, University of Dayton

Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD In the live-sports...

02/07/2026

SVG GameDay, Ep. 22: Winnipeg Jets Kyle Balharry - Going to Work in the Great White North

In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...

02/07/2026

BLAST Reports $133 Million in 2025 Revenue, Opens New York Headquarters

BLAST, a competitive entertainment company focused on esports, has announced more than $133 million in revenue for 2025, representing more than 40% year-over-ye...

02/07/2026

Riedel and SKAARHOJ Expand Collaboration with SimplyLive Integration

Riedel Communications has announced official SKAARHOJ panel support for SimplyLive production workflows, enabled through the SimplyLive 2.1 release. The integra...

02/07/2026

Czech Fire Rescue Service Deploys LiveU Video Transmission for Emergency Operations

The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bond...

02/07/2026

Gravity Media USA Appoints Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development

Gravity Media USA has announced the appointment of Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development, effective July 1, 2026. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Bosto...

02/07/2026

TwelveLabs Raises $100 Million in Series B Funding

TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, has announced $100 million in Series B funding co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radic...

02/07/2026

Pro Padel League Announces Broadcast Partnership With USA Sports for 2026 Season

The Pro Padel League (PPL) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports that will air five PPL championship matches on CNBC during the 2026 season, the...

02/07/2026

LiveLike Powers Eight FIFA World Cup 2026 Fan Engagement Activations Across Five Continents

LiveLike, a digital fan engagement platform, has announced eight confirmed FIFA ...

02/07/2026

InfoComm 2026: Cobalt Digitals blueCORE Wins Futures Best of Show Award

Cobalt Digital has received Future's Best of Show Award, presented by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, for its blueCORE family of standalone signal processor...

02/07/2026

Synamedia Appoints Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as CEO

Synamedia has announced the appointment of Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transition...

02/07/2026

Esports World Cup 2026 Announces Expanded Sony Partnership for Paris Event

The Esports Foundation (EF) and Sony Group Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration for the Esports World Cup 2026 (EWC), taking place in Paris, Fra...

02/07/2026

Zee Entertainment Secures Exclusive Bundesliga Rights in India for Five Years

Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. ( Z') has announced exclusive broadcast and digital rights for the Bundesliga in India for five years, beginning with the...

02/07/2026

All Hands on Deck: NBCU Comes Together to Produce Ultra-Complex Sail4th 250 Broadcast on July 4

NBCU brings together News, Sports, Local, and Telemundo for a 50+ camera live pr...

02/07/2026

Release Rundown: What to Watch in July, From Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass to Murder 101

Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Ben Wang appe...

02/07/2026

The Crow Hill Company introduce Brackish Pads

Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...

02/07/2026

Steinberg SpectraLayers 13 now available

A new era in unmixing and spectral editing The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...

02/07/2026

Sine Machine from Melatonin

Aims to simplify additive synthesis Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...

02/07/2026

iZotope acquired by Boris FX

Products to remain fully active & supported Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...

02/07/2026

GearExpo UK 2026

What you missed! Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...

02/07/2026

Imagine Communications Acquired by Lumine Group

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/07/2026

Rise AV APAC Brings Mentoring Conversation to InfoComm As...

Following the successful launch of its inaugural APAC Mentoring Programme last month, the Rise AV APAC Regional Council will bring the conversation around mento...

02/07/2026

Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out

Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out Brie Clayton July 2, 2026 0 Comments Highly mobile camera supports tense and de...

02/07/2026

Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, media and communications infrastructure

Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, medi...

02/07/2026

Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversary Celebration of the Declaration of Independence

Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversar...

02/07/2026

Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE

Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...

02/07/2026

LiveMode builds agile content ingest with Cinegy

Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...

02/07/2026

Synamedia Appoints Dr Tzvi Gerstl CEO

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/07/2026

Cobalt Digitals blueCORE Wins Futures Best of Show Award...

Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...

02/07/2026

Synamedia Appoints Dr Tzvi Gerstl as CEO as Company Enter...

Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...

02/07/2026

Screen Australia backs audience-led filmmaking with new insight-driven initiatives

Screen Australia backs audience-led filmmaking with new insight-driven initiativ...

02/07/2026

Screen Australia refines guidelines for Narrative Content Development and Documentary Development

Screen Australia refines guidelines for Narrative Content Development and Docume...

02/07/2026

Maxon Autograph: Introduction to working with Tables

Maxon Autograph: Introduction to working with Tables Simon Ubsdell July 1, 2026 0 Comments An overview of Autograph's ridiculously powerful tables...

02/07/2026

Boston Conservatory's Soire Breaks Records to Fund Student Scholarships

Boston Conservatory's Soir e Breaks Records to Fund Student Scholarships The event achieved 127 percent of its fundraising goal in an evening celebrating ...

02/07/2026

How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Med Tech Without Missing a Beat

How Adam Rosenwach Pivoted from Music to Med Tech Without Missing a Beat What do the rehearsal room and the boardroom have in common? More than you might thin...

02/07/2026

Tea with Judi Dench returns to Sky Arts with legendary guest, Sir Ian McKellen

Thursday 2 July 2026 Tea with Judi Dench returns to Sky Arts with legendary guest, Sir Ian McKellen Sky today confirms Tea with Judi Dench will return this su...

02/07/2026

Joyride Through July With 12 Games Coming to GeForce NOW

Summer is heating up - and GeForce NOW is taking players along for the ride. Start the month with Monopoly: Star Wars Heroes vs. Villains, bringing a galaxy fa...

01/07/2026

Broadcast Management Group Appoints Kathy Samuels as Director of Creative Services

Broadcast Management Group (BMG) has announced the appointment of Kathy Samuels ...

01/07/2026

Shade Launches Custom Objects and Automations

Shade has announced Custom Objects and Automations, a platform expansion releasing June 29, 2026, that adds database and workflow automation capabilities direct...

01/07/2026

FOR-A America Adds Two Regional Sales Leaders

FOR-A America has announced the addition of Jaz Wray and Fernando Cruz to its U.S. sales team. Both report to Ernie Leon, Senior VP and Head of Sales and Strate...

01/07/2026

NBC Sports To Present All 15 MLB Games Nationally on July 4 Weekend Star-Spangled Sunday'

NBC Sports will air all 15 MLB games nationally on Sunday, July 5, across NBC, P...

01/07/2026

Clear-Com Upgrades Wireless Communications for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune

Clear-Com has announced a wireless communications upgrade for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, deploying FreeSpeak II and FreeSpeak Icon systems across both prod...

01/07/2026

England Deploys Sony STATSports Live GPS Tracking at FIFA World Cup 2026

England's performance team will use Sony's STATSports APEX GPS tracking system to monitor player physical data in real time during FIFA World Cup 2026 m...

01/07/2026

Adder Technology Appoints Neil Hillier as CEO

Adder Technology has announced the appointment of Neil Hillier as Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1, 2026. Hillier succeeds Adrian Dickens, who transiti...

01/07/2026

Bitcentral Splits Into Two Companies: Bitcentral and ViewNexa

Bitcentral, Inc. has announced a strategic transaction creating two separate companies. The Production and Playout business will continue as Bitcentral, now own...

01/07/2026

DAZN48 Creator Initiative Draws Global Participation for FIFA World Cup 2026

DAZN has announced results from DAZN48, its creator initiative for the FIFA World Cup 2026. Launched in April 2026, the program received thousands of applicatio...