Comment by joenot443
1 day ago
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 :)
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.