I'm surprised there wasn't already a thread on this. Both Sportsnet and The Athletic have stories on this today.
This week, for the first time in a regular season game, the NHL has been testing new microchips embedded in the puck and players' jerseys to track a wide variety of in-game activities in ways that have never been possible before. The new tech was previewed during Vegas' two home games this week (which coincided with the massive Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas).
https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...mean-nhl-fans/
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Expect some news during all-star weekend
The NHL will announce its Player- and Puck-Tracking plans during All-Star Weekend Jan. 26-27 in San Jose. Commissioner Gary Bettman was determined to make it work. Word is the league made a significant financial investment into the research and development.
“We spent well into seven figures on this,” he said Thursday night. “That shows the commitment of the owners, their faith in our vision.”
“(The Commissioner) also told us, the information has to be available in ‘real-time’ or don’t bother,” said David Lehanski, the NHL’s senior vice-president of business development & global partnerships.
Is he satisfied?
“Yes,” Bettman answers, before continuing. “Originally, we saw this as a broadcast application. Nobody knew when we started that we would see legalized gambling.”
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https://theathletic.com/761837/2019/...atch-the-game/
Quote:
“We have literally had to invest in developing technology that didn’t exist, that would be capable of covering our game in real time,” Bettman said.
In the past six years, the technology came a long way, thanks in large part to a European tracking company called JogMo. They installed the necessary data collection equipment over the past few months at T-Mobile Arena, using the UNLV college hockey team as guinea pigs to fine-tune the antenna before using it in a real NHL game.
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This is live video from last night's game between the Sharks and Golden Knights. With the overlays, it looks like a video game.
With the NHL's current statistics system, they track about 350 events per game (with one event being something like a shot, hit, or save). This new technology can track about 10,000 events per game.
Once implemented, we should finally have some truly "advanced stats".
This has the potential to completely change how we watch the game and drastically change the way we understand the game.