Maybe I Was Wrong

The NHL has been promising player tracking for a long time with a glimpse of it happening in full effect at the NHL All-Star Game this year in St. Louis. I had stated at the time of the All-Star Game this year that less is more with regards to all the stuff that the NHL was putting up on the screen, and it felt as though one were watching the stats boxes and the pop-up information blasts more than one was watching the actual game. I'm a hockey guy, and I felt overwhelmed at times. While I applauded the NHL for not getting in its own way yesterday, I likely was too quick to heap praise upon an institution that seems to find ways of shooting itself in the foot.

Why the about-face, you ask? Well, player tracking technology is coming to the 2020 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs whether you like it or not. At the General Managers' Meeting in Boca Raton, Florida, the GMs were informed by Steve McArdle, NHL executive vice president of digital media and strategic planning, that the new puck with the six embedded sensors will hold up to the rigors of NHL playoff hockey based upon the NHL's testing of the new pucks, prompting the NHL to implement the new tracking for the start of the playoffs.

"We haven't been able to break this one yet," Keith Horstman, the NHL's vice-president of information technology, told TSN's Frank Seravelli. "We shot it [at] 170 mph, 20 times, and it didn't beak, it didn't deform. We've been trying to get them to tell us what the break point is and they can’t get the gun [to fire] high enough."

McArdle added, "No cracking, no breaking. The rubber held up. No damage to the puck. We hit the corner of the puck on the crossbar to test various points of potential failure."

Structural problems for pucks wasn't even a topic that was mentioned at the time of the All-Star Game, so this is a new twist on the techno-puck. We all know test situations don't account for all variables, just the most common ones. In saying that, are we going to see pucks shatter if they catch iron at just the right angle?

On top of that, NHL players have been using pucks since they stepped onto the ice since they were lads, and they know what a puck is supposed to feel like when it's on their sticks without even looking down. The muscle memory of stickhandling the puck and moving with it has given them an innate ability to sense the slightest changes in the equipment they're using. Seravelli points this out in his article, stating,

"The NHL put the pucks in the hands of top players around the league to use in practice. While there were no complaints, sources indicated Sidney Crosby was quick to notice that, for example, the edges of the puck felt different. There have also been comments about the weight and feel (hardness) of the puck from players.

"Today's players will be able to pick up on even a hint of a difference, just in the same way that players in the 1990s were able to correctly identify the pucks used for the old FoxTrax system in a blind test."

That seems problematic in introducing something for the playoffs that NHL players already know feels different on their sticks, but I'm no hockey expert. If the puck feels different to the men making the most money to put it behind goaltenders in an effort to win the Stanley Cup, wouldn't that also mean it would bounce, ricochet, and carom differently? Physics seemingly would suggest so, but I'm no scientist here either.

Of course, the NHL has a different story as McArdle told GMs that during a game with the new puck, which didn't feature a team logo at the time, caused the only problem reported by a player - in this case, a goalie. As per McArdle, "Turns out, he had a superstition of handing the puck back to the official with the team logo side up, and he couldn't figure out where the team logo was. That was really the only incident that we've observed."

Um, ok? This unnamed goalie likely wouldn't notice a slight weight or handling difference if he's just required to stop the puck, but you keep bringing forth the examples, NHL. Those are rock-solid snippets of information to lean on when a guy who is one of your poster children in the NHL says that he "quick to notice that, for example, the edges of the puck felt different". Just saying.

While I made the argument for reducing or having the ability to turn off the overwhelming amount of stats and graphics and pop-ups and other paraphernalia that ended up on my TV screen during the NHL All-Star Game, it seems the NHL is more concerned with their return-on-investment for player-tracking technology than how the new technology might affect how the game is played. You can bet your bottom dollar that the NHLPA will bring up any missteps that this puck may cause, and a team that sees its playoff run affected negatively by a weird carom by a puck that's "almost the same" will certainly be banging on Gary Bettman's and Bill Daly's doors.

I've said on this blog a numbers of times that just because one can doesn't necessarily mean one should. This would be better if it were rolled out over the summer to allow teams, players, and fans to get used to the new technology. While I understand that the investment is significant by the NHL into player-tracking technology, shouldn't that mean getting it right the first time if there's that much invested?

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!