NHL to Offer Variety of Animated Game Presentations

The National Hockey League will be airing several animated presentations for the remainder of the 2024-25 regular season, which will feature a variety of formats, content types and distribution partners. These animated data visualizations, which are under the NHL HOCKEYVERSE banner, take place as the league continues to leverage its technology and find new ways to deliver the game to fans of all ages. Beyond Sports technology from Sony will be combined with real-time NHL EDGE Positional Data that merges with optical tracking from Sony Hawk-Eye Innovations to actualize shots, saves, passes, checks and goals in these domains.

The schedule begins on Tuesday, March 11 when the NHL collaborates with the Boston Bruins and New England Sports Network (NESN) to present the Best Snow Day Ever broadcast. The Bruins mascot will be transported into a snow globe of a fictitious iteration of Boston that blends STEM-focused lessons that equips hockey as a vehicle to amalgamate mathematics, physics and science in a fun and educational manner. Five days later, a real-time Spanish-language animated presentation of the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars game will air on Max and Sky Mexico presented by Dr. Simi+.

“The NHL continues to pioneer the use of data visualizations and animated programming,” David Lehanski, executive vice president of business development and innovation for the National Hockey League, said in a statement. “Building on the League’s past animated program successes, we are thrilled to announce another slate of groundbreaking animated data visualizations.

“As our NHL EDGE Positional Data technology continues evolving, we are excited to unlock new growth opportunities for the League, our Clubs, and media rightsholders. The expansion of this programming pushes the boundaries of creativity and technology, helping us grow hockey fandom with new and existing audiences at the local, national, and international levels.”

Throughout the remainder of the calendar, the league is going to collaborate with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Nashville Predators and Calgary Flames on specialized presentations containing different animated storylines. From March 15 to April 16, the NHL will also work with the San Jose Sharks to create short-form animated content clips distributed on team digital and social media platforms. This will all take place in addition to the NHL HOCKEYVERSE Matchup of the Week program, a 30-minute animated show that recaps a regular-season game each week on Sportsnet, NHL Network and the NHL YouTube channel.

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