The NHL released their latest statistical innovation this week, pulling back the curtain on the player and puck tracking data they collect. The tool is somewhat limited in its current state, but it has laid the groundwork to make more internal league data available to the public.
It’s a wise step for the league to take, especially with the proliferation of advanced stats in both the public and organizational realms. This sort of data will play a huge role in the future of the game and giving fans access to even a fraction of it shows that the league understands the value in opening those doors.
Another feature that I desperately wish the NHL would build out for its fans is a form of the NFL’s All-22 product. This has been a favorite topic of mine for quite some time and it’s something that I think the NHL is completely missing the bus on.
Every league has a healthy spectrum of content being created as a result of the product on the field. Between podcasts, blogs, creator accounts on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, advanced stats and mainstream outlets, the NHL has an impressive media landscape. It may lack the overall mainstream attention received by a sport like football, but there is a substantial and passionate fanbase that follows the sport at an in-depth level. The advanced stats community may be the best example of this. Sources like Evolving Hockey, JFresh, Micah and countless others have carved out a niche that provides fans even more incisive coverage of the game. Even with the portion of hockey fans (and media) who dislike advanced stats, there is a healthy following for this arm of the hockey community. Combined with the adoption of advanced metrics by so many front offices around the league, the need to provide fans with more insight to this piece of the game was obvious. But what if there was another feature fans and creators could tap into?
There is a veritable cottage industry built around the NFL’s weekly All-22 release. Team-focused sites, league-wide creators and mainstream reporters all benefit from the content and it’s become ubiquitous in the coverage of the league. It’s also available for anyone to purchase as part of the NFL’s streaming package. It’s an ingenious product because it puts “coaches film” at your fingertips. That’s a pretty powerful selling point, even if you know a large segment of more casual fans will rarely view it. Die hard fans and content creators are the ones who reap the benefit of the All-22 feature. Giving those creators access to this form of content means there’s another avenue for fans to connect with the sport, as even casual fans will consume content from creator accounts, blogs and other similar outlets.
This is where the NHL should be taking advantage of a similar product. There is already a healthy advanced stats community that builds content off the sport. These are some of the more diligent fans of the game you will find given the work they put into their product. Further, the continued growth of skill development coaches and other similar hockey-focused training has spilled into creator accounts as well. You don’t have to look far to find scores of development coaches creating content on Instagram and TikTok. Clearly there is demand for additional content within the spot. There is also a healthy amount of expert analysis and content development already taking place. Just look at the work being done by InGoal. Why not provide access to a coaches-style video production of every game? A tie-in to another product, like the NFL offers, means you would increase subscriber counts to a particular app or service (which means more money). In turn, you’re giving the creators who follow the league so closely a new tool to base their coverage on. Thus creating the ancillary benefit of giving die-hard and casual fans alike, one more type of content to consume outside of the nightly games and highlights.
Each building would need an additional set of fixed cameras to provide the necessary angles to make such a product worthwhile. I’d imagine a camera shooting from the scoreboard into the offensive zone (EA Sports view) plus the preexisting cameras from behind the net would make for a good baseline. Then it would be a matter of determining a space in each building where a camera could be positioned that captures the entire ice at all times without being so zoomed out that you can’t make out individual players or puck movements.
I am not an All-22 subscriber, but from what I know of the platform, there is one big difference that makes a direct replication in hockey a difficult proposition. Every play in the NHL is its own individual ecosystem. There’s a set down, distance and time set for each snap. Both teams have specific personnel on the field and an All-22 camera, wide angle or end zone, can capture all of the most important aspects of each play. It’s easily cut and analyzed. Hockey, as a more fluid, free flowing game doesn’t enjoy the same luxury of what All-22 does.
That being said, having the ability to toggle various camera angles across a replay of an NHL game would make this a highly valuable product. You’d have easy access to breakouts, neutral zone play, power play and penalty kill structure and you could clip every save a goalie makes. Goals and penalties could still be tagged in the interface, but unlike the currently available highlight packages that only provide key points from each game, subscribers would get the whole 60 minutes.
A really cool feature would be individual iso cameras. Obviously it wouldn’t be possible to iso every player every night, but highlighting specific stars on each team on a nightly basis could be an awesome added layer to this sort of product. Imagine having the option of pulling a Colorado game and having individual, iso-cam shifts available for Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar to replay. That’s ready made content for content creators on virtually every platform, the NHL’s own included. I’d imagine virtually every skill coach account on Al Gore’s internet would want a piece of that sort of footage.
I’m sure there are other features I’m overlooking, but just like the NHL EDGE platform, they need to start somewhere. Giving fans one more way to dig into the games around the league, for a nominal fee, is a great place to start.
Two in the Box 