By Carolyn Braff

The International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships open play this weekend in Quebec City, Quebec and Halifax, Nova Scotia, but fans who tune into the World Championship Sports Network’s live stream of the event on WCSN.com will see the Canadian ice rink by way of Europe. WCSN’s television network will televise only 18 of the 56 championship games, so the Internet entity is leaning on a European partner for streaming support. 

“Our normal workflow is to get a host broadcast signal into our facility in L.A.,” explains David Qualls, vice president of production and operations at WCSN. “This particular event is going to be a little bit different in that we’ve entered a streaming agreement with a European entity. All the matches are going back to Europe for broadcast on various European global channels, and then they’re streaming out of encoders for us in Europe.” 

WCSN is supplying English-language commentary for all 56 matches to broadcasters worldwide. In exchange for the audio track provided by Eric Frede and Steve Schlanger, WCSN is able to lean on a European answer to the streaming question. 

“They already have a delivery solution for all 56 matches into a streaming hub, whereas we’re only bringing 18 matches into our hub,” Qualls says. “Rather than take on the expense of all 56 matches for our streaming solution, we are piggybacking on someone else who already has the full signal in their hub.” 

The local production of all 56 matches is being supervised by Infront Production and Host Broadcast Services, and implemented by Canada-based Dome Productions, which is spreading its resources among the two host sites. The main site, Quebec City, will broadcast in HD using Dome’s Trillium HD production truck. 

“They’re covering that entire venue in HD, so we have HD net cams, HD robocams, obviously the truck in HD, and then we have two satellite uplink facilities to deliver the HD signals back to Europe,” explains Mike Johnson, director of engineering for Dome Productions.

The production includes more than 20 cameras in each arena for each game, including in-goal cameras, which the broadcasters have brought back after a successful debut during the 2007 event.

In Halifax, the games will be produced in SD 16x9 format supported by Dome’s Trio X1 truck and three uplink trucks. Dome will also be supporting Finnish broadcaster YLE by lending its Netstar SD truck to the broadcast. 

In addition to the streaming the live game feeds produced by Dome, WCSN.com will be offering full game archives and highlight packages from each of the 56 games, beginning May 2. 

“We do this quite often,” Qualls says regarding leaning on a European partner for streaming purposes. “It’s really about the numbers. If it makes more financial sense to have someone in Europe stream for you, then we’ll do that.”  

WCSN's live and on-demand video footage can be accessed via a $4.95 monthly subscription that includes behind-the-scenes updates, tournament previews, player bios, scores and game recaps.