The NHL is taking another step forward in terms of data, analysis and puck and player tracking.
The league has reached an agreement with Amazon Web Services to put all videos and data in the cloud. The hope is to give everyone, from coaches, directors and players to fans, an integrated look at the game with the help of new camera angles, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Being able to search and sort each player’s speed, shooting speed and more is not here yet, but this is a starting point.
“Before we get to construction, let’s say, as a new augmented reality app that fans can use in the arena to get real-time stats and puck and feedback from tracking players as they sit and watch the game,” there is a lot of infrastructure that needs to be in place, ”said Dave Lehanski, NHL Executive Vice President for Business Development and Innovation. “There’s a tremendous amount we can do.”
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy revealed the deal on NBC Sports Network late Wednesday. Bettman said that “state-of-the-art technology and services will give us the ability to provide analysis and perspectives that highlight the speed and ability of our game.”
The NFL, Formula 1, Bundesliga football and Six Nations rugby are already using Amazon Web Services, along with individual teams. Beyond the NFL’s “NextGen Statistics,” the Seattle Seahawks used it to study practice habits.
“There’s potentially a lot of skills for coaching staff to help their teams improve, just learning where players can be effective, where there are some opportunities to coordinate better,” said Matt Garman, vice president of sales and marketing. AWS.
Later this season, fans looking for statistics on the NHL website will receive appropriate videos and vice versa. The league expects to have new 4K cameras mounted on the center dashboard of each arena for at least the playoffs to add different angles.
For all the data puck and player tracking, this video will allow Amazon AI to accomplish even more about depositing items, confrontations, stick positioning, and probably pave the way for new stats and analysis.
“It’s just the beginning of this,” Lehanski said. “It kind of melts your mind with the number of opportunities that lie ahead of us.”
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