Season Kicks Off With Live ‘NHL Global Series’ Productions in Prague

Two-game sequence at O2 Area will air in two dozen nations

After this weekend’s two video games between the Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils at Prague’s O2 Area, the Czech Republic’s capital and the stadium could have staged the second-most regular-season contests outdoors North America. It’s testomony to hockey’s attraction within the area.

NHL VP, Broadcasting, Patrick Bither has witnessed that first-hand on a number of journeys abroad. “The environment within the enviornment, particularly the O2 Area — which is a good place not solely to supply a recreation however to really watch it reside — is electrical as soon as the followers are inside,” he says. “They love hockey, they know hockey, and so they love the NHL. We attempt to make that shine via as a lot as doable on the printed.”

The video games, a part of the NHL’s International Collection, kick off the league’s 2024-25 common season and can air in about two dozen nations. Tonight’s matchup begins at 1 p.m. ET; Saturday’s recreation, at 10 a.m.

Bither, who recollects seeing each NHL crew represented on followers’ jerseys two years in the past in Prague, confirmed that the league will incorporate its EDGE stats and puck/player-tracking system into the world feed, marking the primary time the know-how can be used for a global recreation.

In the meantime, three units of TV announcers can be onsite on the O2 Area for the video games. Play-by-play announcer E.J. Hradek and analyst Kevin Weekes will name the world-feed present on NHL Community. Nova Sport, which provides the manufacturing vehicles and onsite crew, could have its personal domestic-TV broadcast setup onsite. It can take the world-feed line reduce and complement it with its personal onsite studio present, Bither explains. As well as, the sport will air on Slovakia’s Markiza tv channel.

Each the Devils and the Sabres could have onsite radio announcers, in addition to studio announcers, and the video games can be broadcast of their respective native markets on MSG, which is able to take the world-feed line reduce and combine its personal line graphics and scorebug. Sportsnet will air the NHL Community present in Canada.

As a result of the O2 Area doesn’t have a conventional press field, the NHL has blocked off a number of rows of seats at middle ice and created tables for announcers. Though the makeshift setup could appear to be a problem, Bither says, the announcers take into account it a profit as a result of they’re even nearer to reside recreation motion.

The NHL is working with digital-media–design agency Mixon Digital on in-venue graphics, which might be created in each the native language and English. Mobilelinks, which covers the Nordic area, is an NHL transmission companion, together with PSSI and Telstra.

NHL Productions will create the replay wipe and open animation for the world-feed broadcast, and Sportsnet will help with graphic creation. A vendor referred to as Stripe will assist combine the clock and scorebug into the printed.

The NHL’s EDGE stats and participant/puck monitoring system can be built-in into the world feed.

On the know-how entrance, a complement of 16 cameras — together with handheld, mounted, robotics, and POV — can be deployed, in response to Bither. 4 super-slo-mo cameras additionally can be out there. The mixing of EDGE stats and participant/puck monitoring will contain two cameras, and a handheld digital camera can be located between the Sabres and Devils benches.

The scheduling of a number of leisure acts on the O2 Area across the NHL’s two-game sequence made it difficult to include completely different bells and whistles into the manufacturing. “To the purpose of attempting to do loads of distinctive, loopy specialty cameras, that didn’t assist us,” says Dan O’Neill, SVP, Area Operations, NHL. “So we toned it down just a little bit due to the timeline of loading into the manufacturing.”

When requested what they’ve realized about broadcasting from the NHL International Collection, O’Neill and Bither have complementary views.

“All people handles issues just a little otherwise in how their departments work,” O’Neill says. “Some are extra siloed. They historically don’t have the tech supervisor, tech producer, that we usually have within the States. They let the engineer and the truck be that driver.”

Says Bither, “Relying on the nation, the market, the rightsholder, everybody has a special method of manufacturing hockey and sports activities basically. You study lots going to those completely different markets and dealing with of us. There’s no proper or mistaken method. You study to regulate your individual pondering when it comes to the manufacturing facet.”