Accessibility Matters

The NHL has done many things in its past to try and grow its game globally, but one of the best things they've chosen to do might be the easiest of options to make the game more appealing. The Stanley Cup Final will be broadcast in both English and French in Canada which is part of the requirements for national broadcasts in this country, and the NHL will offer English broadcasts along with a Spanish broadcast on ESPN Deportes. There will likely be broadcasts in all sorts of European languages as Swedish, Finnish, Czech, Slovak, and other players speak those languages. Perhaps the most innovative thing the NHL is doing regarding a broadcast language this season, though, is partnering with P-X-P to deliver the first championship of any major sports league entirely in American Sign Language!

Three weeks ago, we spoke to Mark DeMontis on The Hockey Show about some of the challenges he faced being a visually-impaired or blind man when trying to play hockey, but it was clear that digital accessibility had a long way to go when it came to finding solutions for those have impairments. Obviously for those who have a hearing impairment, there's the option of closed captioning, but Jason Altmann, Chief Operating Officer of P-X-P, told NHL.com, "As a sports fan growing up, I couldn't relate with the broadcasters because some elements were not well captured with closed captioning."

This led to the NHL partnering with P-X-P to produce a first-of-its-kind, alternate telecast during the Stanley Cup Final dedicated completely to the Deaf community where the game on the ice will be broadcast in American Sign Language (ASL), and will be known as...

I don't know American Sign Language outside of a few words, so seeing this effort by the NHL to make the game more inclusionary for the hearing-impaired community is awesome. As it stands, NHL in ASL will feature Jason Altmann, mentioned above, and Noah Blankenship, an employee at the Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services in Denver, providing real-time coverage of play-by-play and color commentary in ASL during each game of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final beginning on Saturday on both ESPN+ and Sportsnet+ services.

"This initiative demonstrates a commitment to innovation and inclusivity that we value so deeply at the NHL," said Steve Mayer, NHL Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer. "This will not be your traditional play-by-play and color commentary, but rather something more conversational and relaxed in nature providing a deeper layer of additional storytelling. This first-of-its-kind production is something we hope and plan to expand on beyond the Stanley Cup Final and into our 2024-2025 season."

Overlooking the inclusivity comment with it being Pride Month and the NHL's general cowardice in that department, the fact that we're in June 2024 and this is the first major sports league to have an ASL broadcast for its championship is pretty ridiculous. However, better late than never in this case, and the NHL deserves some kudos for listening to Brice Christianson, the founder and CEO of P-X-P, who credited ESPN and the NHL for expanding closed captioning as "a great first step". Having an ASL stream of the Stanley Cup Final, he pointed out, is special for the deaf audience.

"With captions, you're forcing them to read in their second language. There's usually run-on sentences. There's incorrect phrases," Christianson told ESPN's Greg Wyshynski. "What the NHL has shown is that, with time and patience, commitment and follow-through, you can build an accessible and inclusive experience not only with closed captions but with American Sign Language."

There are certainly challenges to overcome, and Altmann and Blankenship have been working to solve those challenges. As Wyshynski writes in his article, "when mentioning a goalie's 'five-hole' between their legs, an ASL announcer would spell it out alphabetically and then use another interpretation of what a 5-hole looks like. Christianson said a lot of ASL consists of facial expressions and body language, which will also be used to describe the game".

There are also dialect issues when it comes to how certain phrases or words are signed, and Christianson stressed that while this is significant for this season, the seven games in the Stanley Cup Final "allows this to be a test of sorts with possible changes and improvements coming for the next time."

"I think it's very brave for the NHL to say, 'Hey we want to do this,'" Christianson told The Associated Press. "We're all going to go in with our best and we're going to try our best, and then we're going to come back and we're going to debrief and we're going to try to get better with every process."

That's exactly the right attitude for the entire NHL in ASL team to have because no one expects them to be perfect on their first broadcast, but it's a major step in being far more inclusive to a community that hasn't been represented in any sport before. Having ASL as one more language in which the NHL can be broadcast makes it far more accessible to fans the NHL otherwise may have trouble attracting, and that's a major step forward for both the NHL and for P-X-P when it comes to their ability to broadcast other sports as well.

For fans tuning into NHL in ASL, "[t]he broadcasters will provide ASL visual descriptions of major impact plays, like goals and hits, as well as referee calls and rule explanations to clarify decisions made on the ice. Graphic visualizations will include a large, metered, real-time bar that demonstrates crowd noise levels to viewers, specifically around certain events like goals and penalties. Also included will be custom visual emotes to depict goals, penalties, the intensity of a hit, and whether a puck hits the post/crossbar". The NHL has said that there will also be "something more conversational and relaxed in nature, providing a deeper layer of additional storytelling" for ASL fans.

This is a major step forward in digital accessibility for fans in the hearing-impaired community, and I, for one, commend the NHL, ESPN, Sportsnet, and P-X-P for coming together to make NHL in ASL a reality beginning on Saturday. My hope is that there is a set schedule for the 2024-25 season en route to future seasons where all 82 games in the regular season and all of the games in the playoffs have an ASL broadcast. It's not an impossibility any longer, and what was once just a dream will become reality on Saturday.

Make no mistake that accessibility matters to those who feel underserved and left behind by the NHL. Hopefully, this leads to the NHL becoming more progressive in other areas of inclusion and accessibility moving forward with other communities as well.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!