An inside look at how players and pucks are tracked during NHL games

RALEIGH, N.C. — The Carolina Hurricanes are back on the ice tonight in Las Vegas for Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final. Regardless of where you are watching the game, technology is helping enhance the fan experience.

Whether you are a lifelong Carolina Hurricanes fan who has dreamt of another Stanley Cup Final since 2006 or a new fan jumping on the bandwagon, your viewing experience has been enhanced by SportsMedia Technology (SMT).

SMT, headquartered in Durham, creates data-driven graphics for sporting events such as clock-and-score bugs, tickers, player and object tracking and more for many sports leagues, including the NHL, NASCAR, NCAA basketball, PGA majors and more.

Since SMT’s CEO, Gerard Hall, developed the first wireless data delivery system and real-time scoring for the PGA Tour in 1988, according to SMT’s website, the world of sport analytics has evolved.

“Real time data is becoming more and more important,” Hall said.

For more than 20 years, SMT, has been a partner with the National Hockey League to provide crucial data for games. Through the years, SMT and the NHL have revolutionized the game-viewing experience for fans, but it has come with learning experiences.

Back in the 90s, SMT worked with Fox to develop a better way for fans to see the puck on TV, as Hall said that was the number one reason why fans were flipping the channel.

“We decided the best way to do it would be we need to be able to track the puck in real time and track the players in real time,” Hall said.

To help fans track the puck better, a glowing puck called "FoxTrax" was created in the 90s, but was short-lived.

“All it managed to do was alienate all the purists. The people that love hockey were like, why is that thing glowing? It was annoying. It was like a stick in their eye. It bothered them,” Hall said.

SMT had the world at its fingertips with this technology, but it just needed to fine-tune its approach. For the last seven years, SMT has partnered with the NHL to provide the Puck and Player Tracking (PPT) system.

“For every game, SMT can provide the real-time location of every player and puck throughout the game,” Robbie Louthan, with SMT.

Chips that omit infrared signals are sandwiched in the puck like an Oreo cookie and placed into a pocket on the back of players’ jerseys. The chips then send a signal 60 times a second to cameras located around the areas that are capturing the signals.

“There's about 18 to 20 cameras up in the catwalk in the rafters. And we basically can triangulate from those cameras, seeing the glowing puck exactly where it is. The same with the players,” Hall said.

Hall said this technology is in every NHL arena.

“It's a firehose of information. But what we're able to do is use that to tell stories,” Louthan said. “We may get speed, speed of the shot, speed of the puck. We know exactly where the puck is on a shot release. So we are interfaced into the official scoring system as well. So it helps the NHL with official scoring metrics. We know who's in the face off circle. We know who wins the face off circle. We can tell you the assist that led to the to the goal.”

This data helps fans be immersed in the action, with visuals added to their screen such as trails of the puck or icons displaying the speed of a shot or player. It also helps officials during the game and coaches and players to better improve their game.

“The players like it because they get to see themselves in replay and figure out I was 8.6 feet from this thing. I should have been seven. And it gets nuanced like that,” Hall said.

SMT’s technology is so precise allows real-time positional data of every player on the ice and puck within two centimeters of accuracy, but it also has to withstand the force the puck endures.

“Every puck is frozen at 15 degrees as it goes on the ice. And then that puck has to survive, hitting a steel pipe at possibly 100 and 120 miles an hour. So that was that was a tough thing to solve from that, from an electronic standpoint,” Hall said.

There also cannot be any difference between a standard hockey puck and pucks that have this technology. To ensure there was no difference, top stick handlers in the NHL were brought in, including Sidney Crosby, to field test the pucks until no difference was felt.

“It was vitally important because we don't want to change the game. We want to be able to add to the game without having a negative impact,” Hall said.

Their technology is continuing to advance, with new inertial sensors added to the next generation of pucks to help tell if a puck was tipped or touched.

While the Canes may be away, SMT is making sure fans can see every play with their SPRITES application.

SPRITES, which uses the information from their tracking system they provide to the NHL, is a digital twin of the live game which can be projected onto places like a phone or in Lenovo Center for the Hurricanes Watch Parties.

“For tonight it will be on the ice itself of what's happening in Vegas will be projected as little icons that represent exactly what is happening in Vegas. Both player icons and the puck,” Louthan said.

The projection on the ice will be played in tandem with the game on the video board inside Lenovo Center, helping to create a more lively game day experience.

“When you're watching on a monitor or a TV or even the jumbotron here, even though it's a giant screen, it's still confined to what that view is able to show you.,” Louthan said. “Whereas here you get the breadth of the ice. You see everything that's happening as players are coming over and on and off the boards and on and off the ice in Vegas. You may not see that on the on the video feed that's being presented to you on the jumbotron, but on the ice, you can see it immediately.”

Giving the fans an experience they will never forget.

“Great technology is complicated. But when you do it so much and you do it in a way that brings it down to make it seem simple, then we're doing our job,” Louthan said.

The Game 4 Hurricanes Watch Party at Lenovo Center is sold out. Ticket sales will go towards the Carolina Hurricanes Foundation.