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NHL

  • National Hockey League
  • Tracking, Broadcast, In-Venue Technology

Challenge

Hockey’s speed has always been part of its appeal, but also its greatest broadcast challenge. With the puck moving at lightning pace and players constantly rotating on and off the ice, fans often struggled to follow the action in real time. Historically, broadcast and arena partners lacked the tools to clearly visualize puck location, player movement and game context.

The sport needed innovation in the form of tracking, broadcast and in-venue enhancements to better connect fans to the game.

Solution

Building on more than a decade of partnership with the NHL, SMT has helped usher hockey into a new era of real-time data, visualization, and fan engagement. Since the league’s adoption of real-time puck and player tracking (PPT) in 2020, SMT and the NHL have collaborated on a growing ecosystem of products that query, visualize, and seamlessly integrate tracking data with video—transforming how hockey is produced, analyzed, and experienced across broadcast, digital, and in-venue platforms.

NHL OPTICS: SMT packages PPT data through NHL OPTICS, enabling broadcast partners to easily integrate tracking-driven insights into live production workflows. OPTICS supports automated, event-based choreography of graphical inserts driven by scoreboard, tracking, and official scoring data, allowing for custom replays, enhanced highlights, and faster downstream content creation.

BROADCAST ENHANCEMENTS: SMT’s real-time tracking innovations extend beyond core analytics to include a suite of automated broadcast enhancements that guide viewer attention and elevate storytelling.

  • Bug HUG (Highlight Underscoring Graphics) synchronizes the clock and score bug with SMT Live OPTICS, automatically highlighting players on the ice when they are featured in graphics.
  • Puck Possessor dynamically inserts name tags on players as they gain control of the puck—most impactful during power plays and overtime—using SMT’s enhanced possession algorithm derived from raw tracking data.
  • Virtual overlays, including the Power Play Clock and Virtual Shot Speed, place contextual graphics directly on the ice and above the goal, with shot speed appearing on attempts over 85 mph. All enhancements are driven by tracking and clock data and trigger automatically based on game context, delivering clear, timely insights without disrupting the flow of play.

IN-VENUE: In-venue OPTICS debuted at the 2022 NHL All-Star Game, extending the same data intelligence seen on broadcasts to fans inside the arena. L-Bars and pointers appear on center-hung video boards, in hospitality suites and throughout concourses, while also creating premium opportunities for sponsors and advertisers to engage fans during breaks in play.

SMT SPRITES: Launched in 2022 during the NHL’s Third Period Live Show on YouTube, SMT’s SPRITES app delivers a real-time, graphical visualization of games in play. Designed by SMT’s Creative Studio, SPRITES integrates the OPTICS L-Bar with live puck- and player-tracking data, projecting computer-animated digital players with information including names, possessions, shot speeds, circle pulse animations indicating time on the ice, an oversized puck, and puck-and-player trails including speeds. Every game being played can be displayed simultaneously in a multi-SPRITES view.

ON-ICE SHOT CHART: Introduced during the 2022–23 Stanley Cup Playoffs, SMT’s on-ice Shot Chart projects tracking-based visuals directly onto the arena ice. Powered by PPT data, the activation highlights insights such as top speeds, total distance traveled and face-off probabilities.

SMT-RAZOR: SMT-RAZOR is SMT’s market-leading analytics tool that links live video with tracking and statistical data to help NHL teams gain a deeper understanding of their players, strategies and roster compositions with event-generated playlists, AR tools, algorithm viewer/editor and an insight valuation engine.

NHL HITS: In 2007, SMT designed NHL HITS (Hockey Information and Tracking System), the league’s official timing, scoring and administrative system that allows the NHL to centrally manage the more than 1,300 games played every season.

OPERATIONS: SMT supports a total of 1,312 games in regular season games with up to 105 additional Stanley Cup Playoff games and Stanley Cup Finals for a potential total of 1,417 games per season across two countries, with up to 16 games per day along with regular season games in Europe.

REMOTE STUDIOS: SMT’s ROOSTER (Remote Optics Operator Staffing & Technology for Eliminating Risk) production studios provide each NHL broadcast partner with an enhanced feed with live data and tracking. ROOSTER workflows allow the graphics coordinator and operators in remote studios to communicate in real-time with production teams around the world.

Results

PPT continues to break new ground in how tracking data can be used to present the game to fans, transforming how hockey is consumed across broadcast, digital and in-venue experiences.

Delivering real-time data such as player speed, shot velocity and possession insights, SMT has made the fastest game in professional sports easier to follow and more engaging for fans.

Broadcasters have a deeper well of live analytics to draw from, along with virtual enhancements, automated graphics and replays for deeper storytelling and more compelling insights.

Inside the arena, fans experience the same data-visualizations, ensuring consistent engagement whether watching in person or a broadcast.

SMT’s innovations have expanded viewership and helped sell-out audiences, reshaping how the sport of hockey is presented and experienced.

CLIENT TESTIMONIAL

“We are thrilled to expand our partnership with SMT, a leader in the sports technology industry and established partner of the NHL. Through our partnership we look forward to continuing to innovate our scoring and puck and player tracking systems, as well as how we bring to life limitless data points, which will take fans more inside the game than ever before.”

Gary Bettman

NHL COMMISSIONER