NHL, NBC Sports Chicago To Broadcast Alternative Animated Blackhawks Game

Educating young viewers on hockey is a goal of the production

Animated alternative broadcasts are increasingly popular sports programming as leagues, teams, and media partners strive to reach new, younger, and more diverse audiences. The NHL, in particular, has showcased a national regular-season game with its Big City Greens Classic in each of the past two seasons. Now the league is bringing the format to the local-broadcast level.

The Chicago Blackhawks, NBC Sports Chicago, and the NHL are partnering to produce the first-ever local animated real-time sports broadcast when the Chicago Blackhawks host the Dallas Stars. The animated alternative broadcast will air tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Chicago Plus, with avatars of play-by-play announcer Chris Vosters and analyst Dominic Moore providing commentary.

NBC Sports Chicago Plus will air a real-time animation of the Chicago Blackhawks–Dallas Stars NHL game on April 6.

The local broadcast will be produced with help from Sony’s Beyond Sports, an artificial-intelligence–based data-visualization platform. The NHL’s puck- and player-tracking data and Hawk-Eye Innovations optical tracking will re-create the play on the ice in real time. New York City-based design firm Gameday Creative spearheaded the creative operation.

“In many ways, this broadcast is going to be like a rush to the senses and in a good way,” said Jon Slobotkin, SVP, content and live programming, NBC Sports Regional Networks.

Whereas NHL Big City Greens Classic was produced with Disney/ESPN and based on an existing animated series, the league and its respective media and technology partners needed to “create a storyline from scratch,” Slobotkin explains. The storyline they developed is a birthday celebration for team mascot Tommy Hawk with a party around the afternoon’s hockey game on a virtual rink adjacent to Blackhawks’ United Center.

“It’s a reimagination of the city of Chicago,” says Slobotkin, adding that elements of Lake Michigan, the Chicago River, and the city’s “L” train system will be visible around the rink, along with other birthday components, such as a cake and balloons. Surprise guests with a Windy City connection, he says, will likely appear during the animated broadcast to wish Tommy Hawk a happy birthday.

A birthday celebration for the Chicago Blackhawks mascot is the storyline for the alternative broadcast.

“This will be very much geared to a youthful audience,” Slobotkin says, estimating the “sweet spot” age range at 8-12 years old.

Some Blackhawks players have been asked questions about topics that would interest younger viewers, such as how they got involved in hockey, their favorite players to watch as a kid, and their favorite snacks and videogames.

“We want to bring a full dimension to these players,” says Slobotkin. “We want to teach the game of hockey to the audience. We want to showcase the personality of the players. We want to make a connection, make them very relatable, that the stars playing in the NHL were once kids growing up just like you.”

Various graphics packages are aimed at educating the viewer, who may be watching hockey for the first time. “That’s a key point of emphasis,” he says. Hockey terms like goal, icing, penalty, power play, and check will “come to life in a way that’s more digestible.

“There’s a level of X’s and O’s,” he continues, “but more on an awareness level and a teaching level that is designed to spark curiosity, so that the audience digs deeper and wants to learn.”

Broadcasters Vosters and Moore, who performed a trial run two weeks ago, will be integral to not only entertaining fans but educating them, too. Although they’ll be physically at the NHL’s control room and studios in New York City, their virtual avatars will appear in 10-15 locations within the animated broadcast environment.

The virtual hockey rink will be surrounded by local Chicago elements.

Slobotkin emphasizes the ability to create camera angles unique to a virtual environment, including a vantage point from the puck and players. “The league has been very proactive in putting cameras in little mouse holes around the ice, above the net, inside the net, robotic cameras placed around the venue on tracks. Picture having all of those plus the ability to create a virtual Skycam, the ability to create virtual cameras on the ice.”

NHL Studios VP/Coordinating Director Matt Celli was technical driver of the local presentation, according to Slobotkin, and created the camera source list of an estimated 40+. NHL Director, Innovation, Charles Campisi managed the project from start to finish.

“To be able to cover not just the game itself but the environment around the game is amazing,” Slobotkin says.

Asked what he hopes fans remember from the animated broadcast, he says he would like to think the end product is “something that is worthy of being revisited over and over again, like any media that you consume.

“This property has a chance to be that,” he continues, “because there’s going to be so many subtleties about this presentation — in terms of design, environment, technology, editorial storylines — that you may not see everything the first time you watch it.”