Comment by bluedino
20 hours ago
> The person kept making the comment that she couldn't see/find the puck and it made it frustrating to watch.
Lifelong hockey fan, I never understood this complaint. I believe it was FOX that did the 'highlight the puck' thing for a few years in the 1990's.
You can't see the ball in American football, either.
But you don't need to. The guy that's running and everyone is trying to tackle? He has the ball. Just like the guy skating across the ice with his stick on the ground? He's got the puck.
When you CAN see the puck/ball, either someone lost control of it, or they're shooting/throwing/passing it.
You're right - it was called FoxTrax, it's a fairly interesting piece of engineering.
It's pretty wild they were able to convince the NHL to use a modified puck with a battery and PCB inside, all so American viewers could better follow the action.
It was not well received in Canada :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoxTrax
Well, the current puck still has emitters inside of it.
> [1] Puck and Player Tracking became fully operational in 2021-22, with up to 20 cameras in each arena and infrared emitters in each puck and sweater.
The player tracking is fairly easy to see; there's often an airtag sized bump on a player's jersey.
The puck tracking can be a bit more difficult but sometimes the puck looks like it's melting the ice behind it. That's just them giving it a grey shadow instead of the neon shadow.
[1]: https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-edge-launches-website-for-puck-...
It was not well received anywhere. However, in a bit of defense of the idea, TV at that time was still NTSC (~480p resolution at 24 frames/s) and it was pretty hard to see the puck even if you knew where it was.
Just a nitpick: analog NTSC was roughly 480i at (just under) 30 FPS. The latter is significant, as 3:2 pulldown (as would have been necessary if the station's cameras were scanning at 24 FPS) would have introduced judder and made tracking even harder. To its credit, interlacing also improved motion clarity at the expense of loss of detail, but whether that's a net benefit ultimately amounts to a matter of preference.
As someone with low vision I loved when they added that and missed it when it was gone.
I can't see the puck at all at a game and have to be very close to a television to see whats going on.
As a result most sports are boring.
> You can't see the ball in American football, either.
The average play must be what, like 5 seconds? So if you lose where the ball is you're not going to be confused for long.
In far fewer than five seconds, one team can suddenly have the upper hand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O34BnFu8Kk
What I’ve always found fascinating is that I could always clearly see the puck in any stadium, no matter how high up I sat. It was impossible to miss.
However, when watching hockey on TV, it’s incredibly difficult to see the damn thing.
As a gamer this seems obvious to me. It's long been clear to me that our eyes are very adept at processing high-speed motion. Even the first 120Hz LCD gaming monitor, as sucky as it was, was miles bette than the 60 Hz on the market.
So while technically our eyes might not discern individual frames higher than 25 FPS or so, our brain can absolutely process data from a much higher effeice framerate. The motion blur fast thing naturally produce for example, provides critical context clues.
In gaming, sure 240 Hz won't help you see more as such, but it allows your eyes to do what they naturally do and give a much improved experience of fluidity and superior motion prediction.
I find this interesting - before we switched from 5/4 aspect ratio, it was hard to find the puck because the camera was always chasing - but if you know hockey (e.g., watch enough of it) there are a lot of cues about where the puck is or will be, now that we have a wider aspect ratio.
The effect is so powerful, it fools professionals and the camera-operator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fioVbt7eF8
Even when the technique is known, everyone remains susceptible (the victim team in the above video is the trickster here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSNTfFg4XW0
pretty common with my crowd of fans to even get a little giddy when the play is so deceptive that it fakes out the camera man and they dont realize theyre focused on the wrong player until a second or two passes
That's the exception. not the rule.
So yes, in "trick" plays you can't see the ball. But neither can the defense.
Having watched hockey AND US football my entire life, you can't compare the two. Totally different styles of sports and thus comparing your ability to see the 2 doesn't make sense.
to add: There has never been a football in history that had the ball going from one end of the field to the other and back. And yet, this happpens in hockey regularly and within seconds.
> American football
handegg*
The leading theory for the etymology of the “foot” in “football” is because it’s played on foot unlike, say, jousting or polo.
Also:
basketball -> handball
hockey -> stickball
volleyball -> handball
rugby -> handegg
baseball -> stickball
cricket -> stickball
golf -> stickball
Hopefully this will finally appease the football literalists and make things simpler for you all to understand :)
I find it werid that you keep calling soccer football.
I like the basketball, volleyball, and baseball way where the noun before ball has some leeway but should be clearly identified with an aspect of the sport.
football -> tackleball rugby -> tossball cricket -> paddleball golf -> clubball hockey -> icepuck
Handball’s already taken though.
I'd go a step further and say the ball/puck is not the interesting thing to watch.
Imagine if you couldn't see the players, and just saw the puck. Would that be interesting at all?
Think about tennis. There is the trope of people's eyes going back and forth following the ball, but I don't think they are following the ball directly. They are going back and forth looking at the person who is going to hit the ball.
I think you might be conflating knowing where the puck is with being able to fix your eyes on the puck at all times. The complaint is usually about the former. People are complaining that they don't know where the puck is.
you dont know what you dont know. walking into hockey for the first time, you may think you should be looking for the puck.
but really, what you want to look for is how the players are moving. it's sort of a "which one is different from all the others." one person will clearly be moving in a completely unique way, as the others chase them or vie to get open or get in somebodys way. to acomplish this identification, youre looking at their legs, shoulders, hands, feet, and heads.
> You can't see the ball in American football, either.
Tell me you're not from the US without telling me. This is apples and oranges.
Unless it's a trick play, you 100% know where the ball is.
How many times in football does the ball go from one end to the other and back? Never. In hockey that happens regularly, and in seconds. That's why comparing them in this context isn't correct.