SAN JOSE, Calif. – The 2019 Honda All-Star Game is being held in beautiful San Jose California, where the weather is more spring like than winter. The high is 67 degrees F (19 C) today, with a clear blue sky. Inside the SAP Center for the game action, there’s no other place to get to see new technology in action. The NHL Puck and Player Tracking technology will track both player and puck movement for both the skills competition and the game.
NHL has officially partnered with Fraunhofer, Europe’s largest applied research organization, through their subsidiary company, jogmo world.
“Being on the forefront of innovation is good for our game, and most especially our fans,” said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. “As a League, we have made significant investments to create new technology that quite literally didn’t exist. We think many of our fans – especially the innovation generations – millennial’s and Gen Z – are going to love this new frontier. These kinds of advancements are only possible with great partners, like the Fraunhofer Institute and their subsidiary, jogmo world. They’ve developed a system that met our standards not only for the puck and player tracking technology but also the engineering and manufacturing associated with this complex endeavor.”
The technology will track every movement of the puck and both teams’ layers during every game. The system will have the ability to track the players at 200 times per second, and the puck at 2,000 times per second. The players will be tracked by a sensor that will be placed in their shoulder pads. Pucks have been manufactured with the sensor inside. There will be cameras placed that will support the tracking functionality and the antennae will be installed in the rafters. On average, the technology will generate millions of data points for every game played.
The data will be used to create new stats, analytics, and in-game graphics. Some of the first examples fans will see once the system is implemented League-wide will occur in the broadcasts on NBC and Rogers, and will likely highlight puck/player speed, puck/player location, player distance traveled, and player time on ice, to name a few. In addition to the broadcasts, this data is going to enhance a multitude of fan experiences including sports betting/gaming.
Fans watching from NBC or Rogers will be able to see the technology in use during the broadcast.
That’s it for now, back to the sunshine. PHN will post the results of the 2019 SAP NHL All-Star Skills competition following the event this evening. Now, where’d I leave my sunscreen?
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