Screens In The Ice?

If there's one thing I know about the work that goes into getting arena ice ready for a season of hockey, it's that it takes a lot of time and planning. Arena staff have to properly measure, align, and paint lines by hand for the various lines needed in hockey, and the bigger teams may include logos or elaborate designs in their lines. The logos seen in faceoff circles are usually large, printed logos that are installed below the ice surface and they're usually a static design for the entire season. But what if they didn't have to be?

The OHL's Guelph Storm announced today that they're upgrading the Sleeman Centre, and one of the new things that fans will see at the rink this year and beyond is an ice surface that changes its logos and advertising as the Storm see fit. Thanks to a Finnish company named LedFoil! With a number of European clubs using their technology, LedFoil is looking to break into the North American market with their in-ice LED technology where they likely will make a fortune!

Guelph will see it used at centre ice in place of their traditional, faceoff-circle team logo, and Storm vice-president of business Matt Newby told Mark Pare of GuelphToday.com, “Depending on what jersey we're wearing on a given game, or if we're doing a special event – which we're going to do with the Platers – it allows us to put that logo at centre ice instead of the Storm logo," adding, "It's an LED scoreboard in the ice, the entire centre ice circle."

This sounds interesting, right? The options for teams could be limitless depending on how creative they get, but I'm a definite "try it before you buy it" guy. What does this in-ice LED display look like when being used during a game? Is it as good as Newby suggests?

Waterloo, Ontario-based Athletica Sport Systems, who owns the North American distribution and selling rights, has a video up on YouTube, and I have to say that seeing what this technology can do might change how hockey looks in North America. Check it out below!
Before we go any further, that video is also two years-old, and the company has yet to post anything newer. I'd love to see some of the ways this technology is being used by hockey teams, but Athletica Sport Systems doesn't have those details available anywhere.

That's not a setback, though, because both Athletica Sport Systems and the LedFoil companies have images on their website where they talk about the cool science that goes into the LedFoil system.

"Smart LED-unit is installed inside the ice and is supported by a cloud-based content management software. It enables live interaction with fans and changes the event experience. First and foremost the digital in-ice display enables scalability which adds the number of sponsors and gives your club more time to seek advertising partners. Ultimately LEDFOIL ICE multiplies club's commercial income so that the core business, sport, would do better."

I'm not particularly excited about adding advertising to the ice, but I get how hockey in today's age works. Money matters when it comes to running a franchise and an arena, so finding extra revneue-generating spaces in an arena matters to owners. That's obvious.

Depending how deep an owner's pockets may be, LedFoil can be added to the ice from the "centre circle to the entire ice as well as to the boards". The LedFoil installation can show things like logos, videos, and animations, so you're likely going to see this in NHL arenas sooner rather than later when it comes to owners maximizing revenue dollars. For teams like Vegas, it could upgrade their pre-game productions further, so this technology could significantly change how hockey looks from an entertainment standpoint!

If you're wondering about the costs, there is nothing posted on either website and Guelph Storm's Newby "was hesitant to say what the cost would be, as he isn’t sure what the company is charging other teams". Being that scoreboards with video screens are usually hundreds of thousands of dollars, I would expect those kinds of numbers to be on an invoice for any arena that wants to install LedFoil. It certainly isn't a necessity for hockey at this point, but LedFoil's technology may eventually be part of the standard arena equipment one day if teams begin to see and realize benefits.

We'll have to keep an eye on Guelph's ice this season to see if this investment is worth it, but this technology is already being used in Europe by Czech club HC Dukla Jihlava and Finnish club Oulun Kärpät. If Guelph's financial statements at the end of the year show a big jump in advertising revenue, expect other teams to follow suit.

For as much as I dislike seeing ads plastered everywhere in rinks, on boards, on jerseys and helmets, and on the ice, it seems we're not far from having dynamic sets of ads appear inside the ice as well. Maybe hockey is actually the distraction from two hours of advertising?

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

A Delicate Balancing Act

Television is the one medium where live sports does well when it comes to viewers and advertising revenue. The NFL, for example, saw its media partners generate a combined $5.87 billion in revenue with $5.19 billion of that total coming from television. The NHL likes to remind everyone of their successes on television when it comes to money and viewers whenever it can, but what about the smaller leagues? Do they do as well as everyone else? That might be a question worth examining after reading Mick Hatten's article on St. Cloud Live today.

Hatten's article takes a look at the relationship that the NCAA's St. Cloud State has with television with respect to fans attending games in-person. The first line of his article reads, "St. Cloud State University Athletic Director Holly Schreiner is trying to find the right balance for the TV coverage of the school's men's hockey program," and that's an interesting premise coming out of the State of Hockey if the Huskies are struggling to attract and retain in-arena fans.

There's no doubt that NCAA hockey teams makes money off their streaming services, but there is a major asterisk on the totals they generate. League members received a combined $1.19 million in profit from NCHC TV, via Sidearm, during the 2025 fiscal year, but $704,705.50 went to the University of North Dakota. In fact, they dwarf everyone else COMBINED in the top-ten school revenues by nearly $217,000, so let's be brutally honest and say that UND benefits almost exclusively from NCHC TV. No other program hit six-digits in revenue in 2025, and 59.2% of all streaming revenue went to UND.

With costs escalating across all facets of hockey, NCAA teams have to be mindful of generating revenue in order to help offset their budgeted amounts of money they receive from their respective schools. Having fans in seats helps to sell concessions, merchandise, and parking which, in turn, helps those teams. But if games are available via streaming and television platforms, the convenience often outweighs the effort it takes to head out to the hockey game.

"Do you lose more than you gain if you get rid of it?" Schreiner asked Hatten rhetorically. "That's a hard one. We know that the university does a great service through Husky Productions and what these students can do and put out a broadcast that is so high quality.

"It's going to be hard to say that we're not going to do that live," she continued. "I think they deserve to have that on live TV. But maybe it's too good of a job. That's a good problem to have. In a perfect world, we have it broadcast live, lots of viewership and yet we have a nice, full crowd every weekend."

The NHCH also seems to recognize that only one team has a solid revenue stream combined with solid attendance as North Dakota led both categories, causing NCHC Commissioner Heather Weems to tell Brad Elliott Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald in April that "the league will hire a consultant to help schools navigate their options".

"I'd expect in the next six to nine months, we'll go through the process with the consultant and we'll have an announcement in the spring or the late winter," Weems told Schlossman at that time. Obviously, there won't be any changes made for the 2026-27 season based on Weems' timeline, and any chamges recommended will still need some time to be implemented. For St. Cloud State who averaged just 3561 fans per game last season, that's valuable time where they can make their own changes to bring more fans to games.

"I think anyone who was at games this year would look at us and say that butts in seats weren't good," Schreiner admitted. "But I go back to streaming... that's a hard conversation to have. When it's 20-below zero, or even just zero, and you can watch a stream from home — what's the incentive to come and be here in person? That's the one thing that we're working on this summer."

The one thing that always puts people in seats is winning hockey. St. Cloud State was 9-14-1 in-conference and 16-19-1 overall. That's not winning hockey when one considers they missed the playoffs, so making the trek to see the Huskies play when there's a likely chance that they'll lose doesn't make for a fun night out in the dead of winter. However, as an illustration, consider the following:

• 2025-26: 9-14-1 (7th in NCHC attendance - 3658)
• 2024-25: 7-16-1 (9th - 3046)
• 2023-24: 11-9-4 (6th - 3540)
• 2022-23: 12-9-3 (6th - 4206)
• 2021-22: 10-10-4 (6th - 3981)
• 2020-21: 15-9-0 (4th - 404**)
• 2019-20: 10-12-2 (6th - 3981)
• 2018-19: 19-2-3 (6th - 4260)
• 2017-18: 16-4-4 (7th - 3995)

Aside from the pandemic-affected numbers in 2020-21, St. Cloud State has flirted with 4000 fans per game every season including when they finished atop the NCHC standings in both 2017-18 and 2018-19. The recent drop could be due to having another professional team in the state in the PWHL's Minnesota Frost who could affect St. Cloud State's attendance if people living closer to Minneapolis/St. Paul opt to spend their hockey dollars there. Again, it's a balance.

St. Cloud State has seen nearly 550 fans stop buying tickets since 2023, and that has to be concerning. Is that due to games being availabl e via streaming services and/or television? I'm not so sure that those two things are correlated unless there's some sort of examination where viewers are going up for the televised games, but Schreiner's asking that question based on the empty seats she sees.

"Does having our games televised live help us or hurt us?" she asked. "At the same time, we get sponsorships that advertise during that time that we otherwise won't have without that partnership. Being on TV, we have great viewership in the Twin Cities metro areas. It's hard to say you want to give that up. Yet there are days when you see almost no one at a game and I say, 'Let's get rid of that opportunity.' That's a hard one. I'm not sure what the right answer is."

Therein lies the problem: the right answer isn't clearly evident. We heard the same argument about UMFM's radio broadcasts taking money out of the pocket of the Manitoba Bisons due to how good our production was compared to what was being streamed. That was part of the reason that the Bisons walked away from renewing the contract with UMFM. They'll never reveal their numbers, but I can't imagine that their Canada West TV numbers went up once they ditched the radio broadcast. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

So how do schools balance putting people in seats with the need for television exposure? Again, there is no eas answer. A winning culture combined with high standards and a pedigree of developing high-end talent would help. There are no big-name CHL players headed to St. Cloud State this fall to play hockey, so the Huskies won't have a must-see player on their roster. I'm not saying that will solve their attendance problems in one season, but it would be a good start.

Schreiner is aware of the changing sports landscape regarding how people watch, telling Hatten, "I think the way sports are now, it has shifted who our target audience is. Youth hockey parents are never free on weekends. We've been brainstorming a bunch of different things. Whether it's getting more season tickets sold, or whether it's single-game tickets from promotions to the way we advertise and see our information. It all needs to be looked at differently."

Schreiner is entirely right with her last sentence as attending games is more of an experience now than just being the game. Vegas has their elaborate productions before every game. Nashville has intermission concerts with well-known musicians and bands. Carolina does the tailgating experience before games. Each of these unique attractions help to sell the hockey experience, and this is what St. Cloud State has to tap into: find something fun and unique they can build on. Once they have that, winning hockey brings people back.

As much as it seems sensible that abandoning television and streaming services would drive people back to the rink, I'd argue the opposite is never truer than before, and the Chicago Blackhawks are the perfect example of how not being on television hurt their attendance at games. Of course, playing winning hockey helped, but, as the old saying goes, "the worst thing about being talked about is not being talked about." I can't tell St. Cloud State what to do nor do I have a crystal ball to tell the future, but abandoning video media would be the wrong direction to take if they want to sell tickets.

As I said off the top, it's a delicate balancing act for teams.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

It's Just Business, Right?

The announcement today was certainly a long-time coming, but it was still unexpected in its arrival. The costs of broadcasting NHL hockey have risen beyond any sort of comprehensible amount of money that you and I will ever know, and CBC's involvement in the game that they helped to popularize, to curate, and to advance was already done outside of a sublicensing agreement from Rogers Sportsnet that was, at best, a charitable offering to keep the public broadcaster involved. Yes, the CBC showed games on their network, but their involvement in making the game better through Hockey Night in Canada was already dead.

Today, the final nail in the coffin was hammered home as Sportsnet and CBC announced that CBC would be stepping away from broadcasting NHL games moving forward. For 74 years, the public broadcaster was bringing the game to places and homes that Rogers Sportsnet cannot reach, but that all ends today. Gone and never to return is the collective unity of a nation coming together on Saturday night to huddle around the television to watch "the game" on CBC.

For many, this will be an "old man yells at clouds" moment, but there was one thing growing up that was a constant for me in the winter: Saturday night was Hockey Night in Canada. Yes, I lamented over seeing the Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks every week, but I was addicted as a kid to watching as many games as I could. There were very few midweek games in that era unless the playoffs were on, so Saturday night really was hockey night for all Canadians.

For many Americans in Buffalo, Detroit, Seattle, and other border cities, picking up the over-the-air CBC signal with their rabbit ears or TV antenna was how they were exposed to the magnificence of Hockey Night in Canada. Thousands of Canadians in the north, in remote towns, and in cottage country would rely on that same signal to bring the sounds of Hockey Night in Canada to their TVs in their abodes. There weren't high-definition hockey broadcasts to worry about in that time. If you could get the signal, everyone was happy.

That was the beauty of CBC and Hockey Night in Canada - it didn't matter where you lived in Canada, you could find a place where CBC's signal would reach. Hockey Night in Canada became an institution that saw generations of kids dreaming to play in the NHL one day becoming parents who watched their kids have those same dreams. There simply wasn't another weekly program like it on television.

We welcomed men into our homes that we didn't know, but who we trusted to describe the action from their seats high above the ice. From Foster Hewitt to René Lecavalier to Danny Gallivan, the early days of Hockey Night in Canada had its iconic voices that brought the action to life on the screen. Bill Hewitt and Dan Kelly gave way to Bob Cole and Dick Irvin Jr., and we have been blessed with the sounds of Jim Hughson and Chris Cuthbert who have called some of the biggest games in hockey's history. These men ARE hockey's historians.

We've watched, laughed, disagreed, and cheered other personalities that include Frank Selke Jr., Dave Hodge, Brian McFarlane, George Stroumboulopoulos, David Amber, and Ron MacLean as hosts who tried to guide the many panelists featued on Hockey Night in Canada. John Bartlett, Harnarayan Singh, Don Wittman, Dave Randorf, and Paul Romanuk have all called games for the public broadcaster while the likes of Harry Neale, Craig Simpson, Glenn Healy, Howie Meeker, Greg Millen, and Mike Johnson have made the game better as analysts. Making the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast booth roster was always the ultimate job for many sports broadcasters in Canada.

You can thank George Retzlaff in 1955 for inventing the instant replay while working with Hockey Night in Canada before it was perfected in 1965. Gerald Renaud introduced the multi-camera option for sports, which is now a standard, when he set up three cameras to broadcast the very first game. In 1965, Hockey Night in Canada was one of the early adopters of broadcasting sports in colour with all games in 1966-67 being broadcast on "colour TV". Hockey Night in Canada was an innovator in producing telecasts in Inuktitut, Italian, Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog and Punjabi. Cassie Campbell-Pascall was the first woman to call an NHL game on national television in 2006 on Hockey Night in Canada. All of this was done with the support from the CBC.

Dolores Claman, a Vancouver-born composer and accomplished jingle writer, gave Canada its unofficial "second national anthem" with her song "The Hockey Theme" which started Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts. It was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010, and Bell Media bought the rights to the song in 2008 when the CBC reportedly declined to renew their rights. It was being used on TSN hockey broadcasts after Bell Media acquired it, and the first few notes of the song are recognized by almost all Canadians.

Sure, there were stumbles and questionable decisions made over its history, but 74 years of innovation, broadcasting excellence, and a reach like no other program in Canadian television history had were ended unceremoniously and rather callously with one brief announcement. We've talked about the loss of regional carriers for teams on The Hockey Show as broadright rights fees shot through the roof, but seeing Canada's trusted hockey institution close its doors today is a kick in the gut that I never saw coming despite me knowing that it was always on the timeline. Hockey Night in Canada is over.

I respect the fact that CBC wasn't making one cent off showing NHL hockey thanks to all of the ad revenue going back to Sportsnet, but there will be a void on Canadian TV now. CBC Sports did announce that they will launch a new Saturday night show that will focus on Olympic-oriented competition as they continue to be Canada's best media supporter of amateur athletics, and they can actually make a little money by earning ad revenue during this new show. That's a good thing when it comes to their continued support of amateur Canadian athletes and sports. I can't fault them for this decision.

With Rogers Sportsnet moving into a 12-year, $11-billion rights deal next year, it seems that cost for CBC to air games skyrocketed as well. It doesn't matter that the televised product got worse with Sportsnet involved, that innovation was all but killed under their watch, or that regional blackouts still plague the network. For $11 billion, Sportsnet got what it wanted all along as they're now only Canadian network where NHL games can be broadcast in Canada.

But as Ted Rogers and Gary Bettman will say, it's just business, right?

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 714

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, returns tonight with a look at a pile of stories that have emerged in the hockey world over the last week or so. There's news from Europe, news from the southern US, new from Russia, and news from across Canada that needs to be discussed in greater depth as our hosts tackle a number of stories. There are no Survivor: NHL Playoffs exit interviews today as we're saving them for next week, so get ready for a pile of news and discussion about everything happening in hockey on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason jump into the hockey stories by discussing the results at the IIHF Men's World Hockey Championship being played in Switzerland including who is being relegated and promoted for next year's tournaments. Beyond those scores and stories, our hosts will discuss Hockey Canada's women's program making changes, an old ECHL team is new again, a more thorough discussion on the Hamilton Hammers, Jordan Tourigny trying to join the musical group Stomp, the Ottawa Charge getting close to announcing what arena they'll play in next season, Russia's return to international hockey, the KHL's winner and an interesting fact, and there was more science revealed about a player we lost last season. It's a busy show with lots to go over, so get ready to roll tonight for The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The UMFM website's streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat about international results, program changes, reborn cats, disappointing logos, stepping on toes, relocating teams, a returning foe, Russia's winners, head trauma, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: May 28, 2026: Episode 714

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Do Not Suffer Quietly

I have nothing but complete and total respect for Victor Hedman after he announced today that he had been out of the lineup while focusing on his mental health. When an athlete as heralded and celebrated as Hedman speaks about how he needed to step away from the game that has brought him his celebrity status, it might be time to take a longer look at how hockey and sports in general takes a mental toll on those who play the game. We saw Linus Ullmark speak of the struggles he went through earlier this season, Robin Lehner has been struggling with his mental health for a while, and Ville Heinola spoke of hiring a mental health coach to help him this season. Clearly, this is a health issue that all professional sports leagues should be working to improve, and I commend Victor Hedman for speaking out today about his mental health situation.

Hedman spoke openly and honestly with reporters today as he spoke about his prolonged absence from the Lightning lineup, telling the assembled media that he's been seeing a therapist for years.

"It just helps to have someone to talk to. My therapist has no clue what hockey is. She's learning, but that's kind of nice, too," Hedman told reporters about his therapy sessions. "She's not focused on me as a hockey player, she's focused on me as a person. That's been great, and she's been a tremendous help. She's one of the big reasons that I'm standing here today and feeling the way I feel."

Seeking treatment for mental health issues is nothing new for hockey players, but being as open and honest about those struggles is a vast difference compared to the various ways that some dealt with their deteriorating mental health in the past. Coaches, fans, and media would question a player's "mental toughness" if one were to show ay sort of weakness, and players often remained silent and treated their struggles with mental health through dependencies that affected them and their loved ones. In short, mental health issues have always been present for elite-level hockey players, but, thankfully, things are changing since those days of yesteryear for those needing help.

A 2025 study titled Elite Ice Hockey Players’ Well-Being: A Scoping Review published in the National Library of Medicine written by Pierre-Luc Veillette, Stéphanie Girard, Jason D'Amours, Vincent Huard Pelletier, and Paule Miquelon looked at "the psychological factors contributing to elite ice hockey players' well-being". The study was based on published works that focused on "anxiety and depressive symptoms, motivational variables, and coping strategies at different career stages" of the hockey players described in those articles.

The findings by the authors showed that there are many factors that lead to elite male hockey players struggling with mental health. The study did identify that it was a poor representation of women's hockey as there weren't many articles which they could study, but everything from concussions and their long-term effects to lack of routine for retired players to negative experiences with coaches and parents led to negative thoughts and behaviours in hockey players.

Hedman, in his comments today, indicated that fellow players may be changing how mental health situations are viewed within the league.

"In the beginning it was more with my therapist. Guys were reaching out, and I really didn't have the energy to reach back at that point," Hedman said. "But it was a tremendous amount of support, not just from my teammates, but around the league as well. Tremendous support, and now we're just looking forward to what's ahead."

This aligns with the study above that noted that "athletes who seek social support during injuries tend to cope better during their rehabilitation process. Thus, strong support networks — including teammates, coaches, and family — are instrumental in fostering effective coping strategies". Hedman indicated that the support from teammates and players around the league helped him escape the darkness, and that's a great sign for how hockey may be changing for the better. No longer are players told to "tough it out". Instead, there's compassion and empathy when a player is asking for help.

"The mental part is just as important, if not more important, than the physical part," Hedman stated matter-of-factly about his time away from the Lightning. "This game has given me everything, but it takes a toll on you as well. So just don't sit around with your thoughts by yourself. Just reach out and get the help you need."

There are a pile of great resources for people who may not know where to turn as well. The Canadian Mental Health Association can be reached 24/7 by dialing or texting 9-8-8, there are many provincial resources that can help, the Kids Help Phone has info and resources for younger people seeking help, HeadsUpGuys has mental health resources specifically for men, Indigenous Peoples can get 24/7 help through Hope For Wellness, and the Women's Health Clinic offers assistance to women, Two-Spirit, genderqueer, trans and non-binary people. All of these organizations are incredible and I am grateful they are helping those who ask for help.

I urge anyone who is struggling with any sort of mental health issue - anxiety, depression, overwhelming emotions, or suicidal thoughts - to use the resources above to find some light. As Victor Hedman said, he began his journey with a therapist, but not everyone has the means to be able to get that kind of help. Using the free resources above is a good start in navigating any and all mental health issues one may be experiencing. You don't have to be an NHL player to do that.

Perhaps Victor Hedman said it best near the end of his press conference when he stated, "There's a lot of people out there that can help you, and that's what I found out. It's never too late either."

Full credit to Victor Hedman for being a leader by speaking out about his struggles today. If he can help one person get the help he or she needs with his message, he's done a good thing. And if NHL players are coming to one another's aid when they're struggling, there still is decency and good in a business that often shows little of either trait.

Knowing that NHL players are lifelong teammates who may play on different teams is one thing, but seeing those friendships come before logos or contracts when a player is asking restores a little faith in the game for me. In saying that, if you need help, don't suffer quietly. Be like Victor Hedman and ask for help. As he said, "There's a lot of people out there that can help you" and "It's never too late".

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Cannot Generate Emotion

How about that comeback tonight from the Buffalo Sabres? That was a heckuva rally in the third period with three goals in a 4:34 span that moved Buffalo from a 2-0 deficit to a 3-2 lead in a game they won 4-3. News stories are already being written about it. Sportswriters are already hammering away at their keyboards... or so we believe. I say that because tonight's victory for Buffalo was fifteen years in the making, meaning that there should be a ton of passionate writers and bloggers talking about how much this victory means to the city of Buffalo, to themselves, and to the team. However, Steven Levy has me wondering how much writing is being done by people when it comes to these stories.

Levy is a longtime tech journalist who writes and publishes pieces for Wired. I find his pieces grounded in common sense and practical wisdom, but with an optimism that humanity and technology can work together. In his April 17 piece titled "AI Drafting My Stories? Over My Dead Body", Levy pulls back the curtain on how finance and tech writers are using AI more and more to generate the basis of their stories that are published. In the article, he writes,

"Last month, my colleague Maxwell Zeff wrote about writers who unapologetically generate at least some of their prose via unbylined AI collaborators. The star of his piece was Alex Heath, a tech reporter who said he routinely has AI write drafts based on his notes, interview transcripts, and emails. That same week, The Wall Street Journal profiled Fortune reporter Nick Lichtenberg, who explained to the paper that he leans heavily on AI to churn out his work. He has written 600 stories since July; on one day this past February, he had seven bylines."

Now you might be saying, "Teebz, these finance and tech reporters can do what they want because sports is different," but is it? Can AI-generated stories capture the passion, the exhilaration, and the emotion seen in Buffalo when the final horn sounded after fifteen years of heartbreak and disappointment? Can the human element be replicated by something that feels no emotions or has bias?

Levy writes, "Those relying on 'AI-assistance' claim that these stories are not replacing the work of stylists, but are put to use only in cases where the reader simply wants to consume information, be it a scoop or description of some development. All people want is the facts."

Facts are all fine and dandy when one is building a foundation for a story, but that is a terrible way to report about how a playoff victory came 5473 days after Buffalo's last playoff game and how much it meant so much to a city and its fanbase. AI cannot accurately convey those feelings because it hasn't lived through that heartbreak.

Give me the writers who have had to follow this team for a decade without playoff hockey. Give me fan accounts of how important this game and win was. Give me players' quotations and perspective on their victory. Give me all the stories that Buffalo has in seeing their team rally for a win when it seemed like Boston was in control.

Levy comes to this conclusion in his article, writing, "... because AI doesn’t live in the actual world, or have actual human experiences, no matter what it writes, or how clever it may be, or how much it takes on the voice of a singular flesh-and-blood writer, it can only play a partial role in human expression" which is absolutely true.

In no way can AI replicate the human emotional experience of being a Sabres fans and knowing how it feels to see this team rally from a 2-0 score to win the game in the third period. Yes, factually, it can talk about stats and numbers of how many times the Sabres have done that this season, but AI isn't sitting in the stands watching the Sabres make core memories for fans who have never witnessed a playoff game in Buffalo. That's where sportswriters play their role.

Let me be clear that I have not seen a Buffalo Sabres story about tonight's game that seems like it was generated by artificial intelligence. I chose that game as the example because of Buffalo's situation when it came to their fans' clear excitement over seeing a playoff game for the first time in fifteen years. Combine that with their incredible comeback and victory, and this game had all the right emotional markers that would make it impossible for AI to come close to describing the game in comparison to some great Buffalo reporters like Lance Lysowski and Mike Harrington of The Buffalo News.

Maybe it's best to end this examination of AI-generated stories with the quotation with which Levy began his article. It reads, "Sportswriting legend Red Smith once said that writing a column is easy: 'All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.'" Hockey is a sport played by men and women who are falliable, quotable, emotional, and logical, and we need those perspectives to keep the game real. Your words bring the game to life every time you write.

If you're a sports reporter, the blood, sweat, and tears matter to the people who are reading your work. Don't give in to the easy solution of letting AI generate your content. As Steven Levy summed up nicely in the last paragraph of his article, "... we will all be impoverished by the loss of the human voice. Not to mention the soul."

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

What Happened To The Ice?

If the ice in the image to the left looks a little off, this was a real thing in 2005. With the NHL lockout in full effect, the AHL was seeing a pile of stars play nightly who should have been on NHL rosters while the NHL and AHL brass looked at all sorts of options to make the game better during AHL games. The image to the left is from one of those games where the ice was coloured "electric powder blue", the blue lines were painted almost fluorescent orange, and the red line was painted dark blue. If those changes seem drastic, they were made for a specific reason.

According to an archived USA Today article, "[t]he blue ice is part of an experiment that was approved by both the NHL and AHL after officials discussed changing the ice color from white to enhance how the game is viewed by both live and television audiences."

You might be wondering why the NHL decided to give this idea any thought, but 2005 was the year that HDTV became a big thing that everyone had to have with Steve Jobs opening MacWorld that year "with the proclamation that 2005 is the 'year of high-definition video,'" so professional hockey was trying to keep ahead of the emerging television technology. After all, fans could have an HDTV in their homes for the NHL to give them the best view possible!

The game on March 20, 2005 where this was first tried featured the Rochester Americans and the Cleveland Barons playing in Buffalo's HSBC Arena in front of 15,288 fans as per the gamesheet. Paul Gaustad beat Nolan Schaefer in the first period and Rory Fitzpatrick added a second Americans goal from Geoff Peters and Daniel Paille while shorthanded in the second period, and that's all the scoring that Americans netminder Ryan Miller needed as Rochester captured the 2-0 victory. For what it's worth, Rochester ended up being the AHL's best team that season with 112 points with a record of 51-19-10 while Cleveland was last in the North Division with a 35-37-8 record and 78 points, 11 points back of a playoff spot.

As per the players, some noticed the new paint job on the ice while it seemingly had no effect on others based on their comments.

"I didn't notice it too much from a player's standpoint," Fitzpatrick told USA Today. "It was hardly noticeable at all."

Derek Roy had a different view of the ice after watching the game from the pressbox, telling The Associated Press, "From afar there was a distinct difference, as the black puck seemed to stand out well on its powder-blue backdrop, especially when it slid along the orange 'blue' lines. I think the orange lines really stood out. I think that was a positive. But overall, it didn't look that much different. It looked like everyone adapted and everyone liked it."

Fans seemed to agree with Roy's assessment of the new ice colours.

"I think it looks great," Sabres fan Alysa White told USA Today. "It takes some getting used to, but I really don't mind it at all."

While there was no guarantee these colour changes or any of the other changes - two-foot blue lines, larger nets, the trapezoid - would stick for NHL play when it resumed once the lockout ended, the Buffalo Sabres seemed pretty happy to partner with the NHL to put these experimental ideas to the test inside the HSBC Arena.

"We are very excited to experiment with a light blue ice surface," Buffalo Sabres Managing Partner Larry Quinn told AHL.com. "The National Hockey League first introduced the idea of using different types of ice colors and we asked their permission to experiment with the blue ice concept during our two upcoming AHL games. We think the action on the ice will show up better on television with a blue surface and will be easier to see the flow of the puck."

Depsite the somewhat-positive feedback for the ice, the Americans would play a second game on the powder blue surface against the St. John's Maple Leafs at HSBC Arena in front of 15,326 fans. Jason Pominville would record a hat trick and Thomas Vanek had a pair of goals for the Americans to erase Kyle Wellwood's two goals, and the Americans downed the Maple Leafs by a 6-4 score on April 3, 2005.

I couldn't find a single article about this game with the online newspaper archive being down, so there aren't any further comments about the blue ice. However, it seems like the thinking for the blue ice was similar to the experience that hockey fans had when hockey debuted on TV in the 1950s. As per a McGill University article,

"Television viewers got their first glimpse of painted ice on October 11, 1952 with the initial Hockey Night in Canada telecast. When color television appeared, cameras couldn't handle the brilliant white ice surface and it had to be painted blue. Technology soon overcame this faux-pas so that today we can watch hockey played on a white sheet of ice, as it should be."

With the innovation of high-definition television, it seems like the NHL was trying to learn from a mistake they made in the past by painting the ice blue in these test games. Despite the two games showing no adverse effects for players or fans when it came to playing or watching the game, it seems we were fairly close to seeing blue ice, bright orange lines and face-off markings, and a blue line at centre ice in an effort to make the game easier to watch on HDTV!

Ok, maybe we weren't THAT close considering that those two games were the only games we saw with the blue ice in the AHL that season or in any other season, but those two games should be remembered for what could have been had the NHL gone ahead with their HDTV idea. Frankly, the game looks pretty good in high-definition without any new paint on the ice, so perhaps this blue ice experiment was just to confirm that white ice works best on high-definition TVs.

Or, as the McGill article stated more succinctly, "today we can watch hockey played on a white sheet of ice, as it should be." 'Nuff said.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 697

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, is back in the cozy confines of the UMFM studio tonight where it will be a normal temperature unlike our rink setting last week. Obviously, our hosts had a blast seeing some of the best women's hockey action this province has to offer at the 2026 Female World Sport School Challenge, and they'll wrap up that experience with some well-deserved thank-yous, a recap of what happened, and a discussion on where the tournament may go from here. And then they'll talk other hockey stuff too! It's a fun episode with looks at hockey from across the globe tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason show a little gratitude in thanking at all the people who made the 2026 Female World Sport School Challenge memorable, entertaining, and fun. Beyond that discussion, they'll also chat about the results and who finished where, highlights for each of the two radio voices, and where they may see the tournament going in 2027. They'll also discuss a former Bisons coach getting the bump to head coach in another league, an SDHL team that is making a hard decision on its future, the KHL being the KHL with some of the news coming out of that league, and there's an exciting development coming out of the University of Waterloo about concussion detection! It should be an interesting show based on those stories and more, so make sure you're listening tonight to The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The UMFM website's streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat about great people, great moments, big wins, new jobs, less teams, questionable hires, former stars, brain care, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: January 29, 2026: Episode 697

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 691

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, was all set and ready for a night of laughs and hockey action while being live at a local rink, but Mother Nature had other ideas as Winnipeg was walloped by a snowstorm last night. Since then, it feels like I've been chasing my tail in trying to ensure plans are still on, coming up with contingency plans, and figuring out whether traveling to anywhere is worth the effort. The good news is that we figured it all out by 3pm CT today - yes, we cut it close! - but we'll be talking hockey tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

We'll start with the live broadcast being cancelled due to traveling anywhere in the city or coming into the city was treacherous to say the least. With Teebz and Jason settled at their humble abodes, they discuss the 2028 World Junior Championship location that was named this week, the ridiculous saga into which the EIHL's Fife Flyers have gotten themselves, a similar situation with the EIHL's Sheffield Steelers, an interesting study was done on youth hockey helmets, and there was a massive trade in the NHL. All of these topics are examined tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The UMFM website's streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat tournament locations, bad signings, smart releases, terrible decisions, protecting brains, saving money, trading a superstar, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: December 18, 2025: Episode 691

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Protect Your Noggin

If there's one concern that every hockey player, hockey parent, and hockey coach has, it's the safety of the game when it comes to players remaining healthy and in the line-up. One of the biggest injuries that keeps players on the sideline are concussions, and it's a scary injury because of how serious it can be since we can't see the severity of the injury outside of symptoms. It's also scary when one knows that concussions can get worse if a players rushes back, and there can be long-term effects on someone's health if CTE becomes prevalent. In saying that, a good helmet can reduce the likelihood of suffering a concussion, but how do parents and players determine which hockey helmets are the best for safety?

Most manufacturers will tell you that their helmets pass all the requirements for safety certifications, but we all know that just means it meets the minimum standards for safety. Certain stores may push one helmet over another based on sales requirements or some other metric, but I'm looking for and want the helmet or helmets that provide the best safety for my skull. Where do we turn for this info?

Thankfully, it seems one labratory had the same question. Today, the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab released their first-ever ratings for youth hockey helmets after running multiple tests on 33 different helmets from hockey equipment manufacturers, and I immediately dove into the results to see which helmets made the cut and which ones did not. Needless to say, this might be a list you want to keep handy when it comes to buying a new hockey helmet in the future or sooner if your child is currently wearing one of the not-so-good helmets.

I appreciate the effort that the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab put into doing this testing because, as stated above, concussions can be scary. As stated on their site, "Our ratings are an independent and objective assessment of helmet performance for consumers and are conducted free from manufacturer influence" which means that these tests were done independently without any influence or input from the manufacturers. That's good because it means these tests were done without a concern for the results outside of reporting those results.

Secondly, "[e]ach youth hockey helmet is evaluated based on the results of 48 laboratory impact tests. These tests are designed to represent the types of head impacts that can occur during youth hockey play. For each impact, we measure both linear and rotational head acceleration, which are correlated to concussion risk" which should put some concerns to rest about exactly how these helmets were tested when it comes to brain safety. Is it perfect? No, and no system ever is. But the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab did their best to replicate head impacts that can and do lead to concussions.

You may be one of those people who doesn't want to read reports and stare at numbers all day, but there were two numbers that one should note when looking at the ratings given to the 33 helmets: the score given to each helmet and the retail cost of the helmet. The score assigned by the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab assigned lower scores to better helmets, so you want to be like golfers and aim for the lowest score possible. Having a score of 2.5 is better than a 4.0.

The one that I think may carry just as much importance for those shelling out for these helmets is the price tag associated with the specific model of helmet. The prices range from less than $100 to up to $500 for a helmet, and the ratings will prove that higher prices don't always mean safer for brains. In fact, of the ten helmets that got a five-star rating, three cost less than $100 and the two helmets with the lowest scores are both less than $70. While it might be cool to have a $200 helmet, your brain may not agree if it doesn't offer much protection. Caveat emptor, but use your head. Excuse the pun.

Maybe you've looked at the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab report I linked above. Maybe you're wondering what I'd recommend when it comes to ratings, scores, and costs. Maybe you didn't read it and are looking for the cheat sheet about what helmet you should be looking at for your child. I'll make this easy on everyone by making three recommendations when it comes to helmets, and my focus is on safety and costs because you can replace a helmet, but your can't replace your son or daughter or their personalities. Here are my Top Three Helmets based on the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab report with links to well-known Canadian retailers for each helmet.

• Bauer RE-AKT 55 with Bauer X facemask - 2.67 score
• Bauer IMS 5.0 with Bauer Profile I facemask - 2.72 score
• CCM Multisport with CCM FM YTH facemask - 3.32 score

If you're wondering, none of those helmets cost more than $80 CDN, and they were ranked as the #1, #2, and #9 helmets in the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab study of the 33 tested. When it comes to safety and costs, these three are the best of both worlds when it comes to protecting the developing brains of youth hockey players.

For the vast majority of kids who play hockey, my hope is that your son or daughter never has to deal with a concussion or any sort of head trauma at any point in their lives. Investing in a safer helmet is a good insurance policy to protect against anything like that happening, so I cannot stress enough that you should review the list and evaluate what your son or daughter may be wearing at the rink. I'm not imploring you to spend money you may not have at this time, but my hope is that you'll use this information to keep your child safer in the game they love playing so they can keep playing.

A big stick-tap goes out to the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab for sending me an email about this because this kind of information could change the game when it comes to keeping kids safer in the game. And that's something that everyone should be able to support at all times.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

A Kalamazoo Tradition

I have to admit that I don't partake in ice cream all that often in the winter, but it's something that I only enjoy occasionally in the summer. It's not that I don't like ice cream, but finding a flavour that one likes or wants to indulge in every once in a while might be the hardest thing about ice cream. The probably means that there are some good flavours out there that I'm missing like "Unicorn Toots" or "Moon Mist", but ice cream comes in all sorts of flavours and colours. Food dyes play an important role in giving flavours of ice cream their eye-catching colours, and this is why I'm writing this article today because the ECHL's Kalamazoo Wings are going to continue a tradition where they seem to have cornered the market when it comes to their sheet of ice at the Wings Event Center. Who's up for some odd-coloured ice?

For those that aren't aware, the white ice that we see in rinks is artificially-coloured. According to howstuffworks, the ice you see in rinks is coloured with white paint that "comes in 40-pound bags of powder that have to be mixed with water". The Wings figured out long ago that the ice can be painted with alternate colours to represent specific days and events as they were the first team to have green ice on for St. Patrick's Day on March 17, 1982! What they didn't know, as written by John Peterson for the Wings, was that the green food colouring they chose to use to dye the ice green has "a chemical in it that prevents freezing. The ice that night featured puddles of standing water and made it a sloppy game. The cardboard shamrocks underneath the ice developed air pockets and cracked. When players were knocked down, they’d get up with green dye all over their jerseys."

The Wings have since perfected their technique so that players aren't falling down and getting up in a different colour, but they're going to throw a new shade of paint on the ice this weekend as the Wings will paint the ice lavender in support of the NHL's Hockey Fights Cancer initiative. The team will skate on the lavender ice against the Fort Wayne Komets, and they'll be holding their Specialty Jersey Auction with proceeds benefiting the West Michigan Cancer Center!

Obviously, it's admirable that the Wings are doing this to help cancer research, but we're here to talk ice of different colours, right? Again, Kalamazoo, Michigan is the right place to be because Toni Will, Wings' general manager and Governor, spoke to AccuWeather's Senior On-Air Meteorologist Adam Del Rosso in 2021 about the history and process that goes into painting all their ice all the colours of a rainbow!

Pretty cool, right? The Wings might hold the answers for other teams who want to start colouring their ice surfaces after all the colours they've painted their rink, and they'll add lavender this Friday when they help support the NHL's Hockey Fights Cancer initiative.

The Kalamazoo Wings aren't known for wild colours on their jerseys, but they've skated on ice that's been painted green, pink, yellow, and, on one weekend, all the colours of the rainbow. Frankly, more teams should be willing to have a little fun with their ice surfaces!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Throw Your Gear In My Banner

It isn't often that I find myself impressed by a professional hockey team, but Czechia's TipSport Extraliga has a team doing something this season that's pretty cool when it comes to recycling. The key in this story isn't that they're just helping the environment, but they're also offering fans a chance to own a unique piece of merchandise that may never been produced with the same design again. Frankly, if HC Sparta Prague can make this work, they deserve a pile of kudos for not adding to landfills while having their fans sport some of the coolest merchandise I've seen in a while from any team or league!

Teams all over the world use vinyl banners for advertising everything from upcoming games to significant events at an arena, but once those dates have passed the vinyl banners are rendered useless. Teams and arenas take them down and they either go into storage or are discarded, and that latter can be a significant problem for landfills since the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) used to make banners lasts forever and has the potential to release further harmful substances as the vinyl decays. In short, they're terrible for the environment.

I am impressed, however, by Sparta Prague's new merchandise!

If you caught the visuals, the banner in front which the young lady was standing became the bag she carried on her shoulder! HC Sparta Prague is now using their vinyl banner advertising to make unique and one-of-a-kind bags that will be sold by the team! How cool is that?

According to their release about the new initiative, Sparta Prague is working to ensure they do their part of the environment. According to David Dinda, Marketing Director of HC Sparta Prague, "we ensured that 32 kilograms of plastic waste did not end up in a landfill" which is a fantastic effort by the club to go greener while offering a cool, new product to their fans. And being that the vinyl banner is both waterproof and UV resistant, that would mean the bags would be too!

Sparta Prague appears to be spearheading this upcycling idea as a blueprint for other clubs to follow, stating in its release that they "support the planet and want to be an inspiration for other sports organizations" while adding, "We don't want this to be a one-off activity. On the contrary, we plan to continue this approach in the long term and expand the concept with other sustainable products."

I did a quick check of their online store, and there isn't anything to find there for these bags just yet. I am curious of the process they're using to turn the banners into bags because I think there's huge potential to do this all sorts of events, not just sporting events. Either way, though, I still think this is a fantastic idea to give those vinyl banners new life after they've filled their purpose!

Big kudos to HC Sparta Prague. They may not wear green as an official colour, but they are working to ensure the world around them stays green for years to come. And that's an initiative I fully support!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 663

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, returns tonight as we're down to two or three teams in all the remaining North American leagues still playing hockey. Canadian teams are still skating in those series, so there's a shot that at least one championship will head north of the border in professional hockey. Our hosts will look at that and more after two more Survivor: NHL Playoffs exit interviews as we're down to the finalists in the contest once again, so be ready for some laughs and chatter tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason will send Elliot (Dallas) and Barry (Carolina) off Survivor: NHL Playoffs island as we hear their exit interviews, leaving just GM Jared and Will to battle over who will take home the grand prize. After those chats are done, our hosts will look at the NHL coaching carousel finally wrapping up, who is still alive in the AHL and ECHL when it comes to a Canadian championship celebration, the QMJHL introducing a new tool for its clubs, the NHL State of the Union address by all the big wigs, the PWHL straying outside its lane once again, and anything else we can get inside the hour! Get settled in because there's a lot to cover tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The UMFM website's streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. It's a solid app.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason send Elliot and Barry home before chatting about new hires, staying alive, new tools, scheduling woes, league business, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: June 5, 2025: Episode 663

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Why HBIC Will Never Go AI

I know there's a push in the technology world to aim for more artificial intelligence options across all industries. I'm sure there are many applications for this new technology, but writing sports articles, for example, is not one of those applications I see benefitting from this technology. One of the reasons I'm so against AI is that it often makes more mistakes than it solves at this point, so keeping it away from important things would be prudent. To me, one of those important things would be email marketing for companies, but not all companies feel this way, it seems, based on the emails I keep getting.

In the last few days, I have received a number of emails from a "leadpoint.ai" domain. I had no idea what this domain was, so I went searching. It turns out that it's a digital marketing AI service.

I was a little confused about how I kept getting these emails based on the information in the image above, but it becomes even more confusing when we look at the content of the emails. I'll get to those in a second, but the following claim on the Leadpoint website seems to be carrying a lot of water when one considers the emails below.

Remember, this Leadpoint scam site is claiming to capture names, physical addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers for everyone who visits a subscriber's site. In saying that, consider the following:

The first question you may be asking is "who is Sydnie" because that was the first question that I had. Sydnie, it seems, is looking for siding and/or windows for a home based on the email's introductory message, but that's not something I have ever searched for on Google. The company that signed the email was at the bottom, so I went hunting. It turns out that company is based only in Lakewood, Colorado - somewhere HBIC has never lived nor visited.

Ok, so one email is just some random junk mail, right? Well, what if you got four emails and they were all different, but all addressed to the same person for the same reason? Does it still count as junk mail?

Once more, I am not "Sydnie" nor am I looking for siding or windows. This Lakewood-based company keeps sending me "Sydnie" emails via this AI-based digital marketing service, and I kind of want to email the company directly and let them know they are definitely wasting their hard-earned money on this scam terrible AI service.

I've written about how relying on AI will result in failure, and I can honestly say this is a failure on behalf of this Lakewood company. It's not their fault for putting faith in a system that clearly has its limitations, but charging money for a service that is clearly failing to return on the promises made seems wrong, if not criminal.

Again, I've witnessed some massive blunders by AI in my own dealings with it through work and other ventures, and it simply isn't at the point where it can be trusted to do bigger jobs such as research and collecting information. It does work when summarizing documents or searching for text or phrases within a document, but that's less about the intelligence of the tool than the speed in which it can scan a document. Until artificial intelligence can truly become intelligent, it's nothing more than a fancy tool for doing menial tasks.

Or, in Sydnie's case, a tool to connect me with her home renovation project of which I have little interest. If tools are supposed to be useful in accomplishing a goal, Leadpoint is anything but useful.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Battle Against Humidity

As I watched the Maple Leafs and Panthers tonight before the pivotal Game Two content between Dallas and Winnipeg, I was struck by something that might become more of an issue now than when the regular season was being played. Obviously, the month of May is when the winter weather begins to recede in Canada, giving way to double-digit, positive temperatures and the clear distinction of summer. For the Maple Leafs and Panthers, playing in Sunrise likely means warmer weather no matter what season we're in, but it seems that the puck was bouncier than the games played in Toronto.

Jared Dupre, the ice technician at PNC Arena, home of the Carolina Hurricanes, told The Athletic's Joshua Kloke and James Mirtle in 2020, "The humidity affects the ice surface more than anything else. You want that snow to be light and airy."

The snow to which Dupre is referring is the snow that accumulates on the ice as the game progresses. Most players don't really care for the snow other than having it cleared, but Dupre added that if the snow isn't light and airy, "it starts to stick and it affects the puck."

According to weather reports today, the humidity in Sunrise, Florida was around 55%. Anything around that range is considered high for NHL rinks - "Dupre said typically humidity levels should be below 45 percent" - so there would need to be a reduction in humidity inside the arena as both the temperature and humidity rise outside. As you likely know, as the sun goes down, the relative humidity will go up in the atmosphere, and we saw the humidity at game time reach 70% in Sunrise. Clearly, those conditions make things much harder on the arena's ice staff with that amount of humidity in the environment.

When the doors open for the game, the balance between the humidity inside and the outside of the building gets disrupted, and having 18,000 warm bodies breathing in and out after being out in the sun will certainly affect the internal temperature of the rink which, in turn, affects the humidity inside the building. As such, many arenas have both indistrial air conditioners and dehumidifiers on the top of the buildings and will invest in adding more for the playoffs. Several arenas have done so already this season.

An upgraded dehumidification system one of the solutions employed by the New York Islanders during their run at the Barclays Center where players regularly complained about the ice conditions.

"In preparation for upcoming home games we are working closely with the National Hockey League and have installed a temporary dehumidification system, commonly used at arenas during warmer months, in order to provide the best possible ice for Islanders players," Barclays Center spokesman Barry Baum announced in 2016, according to the New York Daily News. "We are committed to delivering a first-class experience for players and fans."

So how is that done, you ask?

The late Don MacMillan, who was the ice supervisor for the Carolina Hurricanes prior to Dupre, told Melissa Russell-Ausley of howstuffworks.com that "he likes to 'keep the skating surface at 24 to 26 F (about -4 C), the building temperature at about 63 F (17 C), and the indoor humidity at about 30 percent. But if it's warm outdoors and we have an event where the doors are open and all that warm air comes in, then we have to adjust it. Even one degree can make a big difference in the quality of the ice.'"

Not surprisingly, four of the top five rinks named in the NHLPA player's poll in 2018 as having the worst ice came from cities where sub-zero temperatures and higher humidities are common.

In saying that, it make sense then that if the building is warmer and/or more humid, the ice will be worse. In turn, the frozen chunk of rubber that's supposed to slide on it may also get a little warmer, leading to a non-frozen puck around the surface of the puck. Non-frozen rubber has the tendency to bounce when it hits something hard, and that may be the right combination for why the puck seemed to bounce more to me. Or maybe it's just me?

In any case, I know the NHL ice crews across the league do their best to try and create the perfect ice conditions each and every game, so no one will fault them if the doors open the conditions inside the arena change within minutes. There were a few deflectons, ricochets, and rebounds that looked like they had a little extra kick to them, and it made me wonder if the pucks may be thawing out quicker thanks to increased humidity in the building.

I will say this likely needs a bigger discussion, so I'm going to reach out to a few people who may know more about cooling an arena for optimal hockey conditions than I ever will. If possible, I may devote an entire episode of The Hockey Show to this if someone wants to join us to discuss ice conditions in the NHL. Or in hockey in general.

Either way, Florida grabbed an important win tonight to cut the series deficit against Toronto to 2-1. Game Four goes Sunday night where the Panthers can make this a best-of-three series or the Maple Leafs can return home needing one win to advance to the Conference Final. It should be a beauty regardless of the bounces!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 654

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, returns to the airwaves of 101.5 megahertz on the FM dial tonight as our hosts get you ready for a major contest that will happen in two weeks! Every year, The Hockey Show has run a playoff contest for sixteen contestants, and we're nearly ready to kick off another exciting edition of Survivor: NHL Playoffs for this year's postseason! Out hosts will chat about the contest tonight as they get you ready for April 17 when the contest opens! Beyond that, the gents have some hockey news to discuss, so get ready for another busy show tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

He won't physically be in the studio tonight, but Jeff Probst makes a return as Teebz and Jason get you set up with the initial information for Survivor: NHL Playoffs that begins on April 17. From there, the hosts have some business to go over as they look at the new deal hammered out by Rogers Communications and the NHL, why that deal might not be so good, a former U SPORTS player is making waves at the pro level, a number of leagues have champions as seasons wind down, we'll have a new WHL team next season, and there's a Melbourne moment about an encouraging tool when it comes to athletes' health! Assuming we can squeeze all this news in, you'll want to have your radio or internet-enabled device tuned to UMFM's signals tonight for The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The new UMFM website's online streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store. It's a solid app.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat Survivor, new deals, crazy money, winning big, winning seasons, old teams in new leagues, new technology, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: April 3, 2025: Episode 654

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!