The Blue Glow
December 23, 2015 5:00 PM   Subscribe

There were times when we practically lived at the Shark Tank. We’d be there for two weeks, spending most of the time living in the catwalks above the ice. We’d have all of our computers, work area, and everything up there... The initial test of the RF system was frankly scary. We saw that this repeater was bigger than we had hoped it would be. So rather than a half dollar buried in the puck, we were starting to think this was going to be a puck-shaped piece of electronics painted black. And that was scary to us.
First-Hand Recollections of the development of the FoxTrax hockey puck tracking system
posted by mannequito (12 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
From the first link, bizarre self-satirizing ads for the Glow Puck.

ALL HAIL THE GLOW PUCK! ALL HAIL!
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 5:21 PM on December 23, 2015 [5 favorites]


Hah. This is awesome.

I grew up in Ontario, not far from Detroit. THE local team was the Detroit Red Wings among most hockey fans in my locale, so lots of people watched Fox broadcasts of games.

Despite not being a hockey fan, I recall this being met with derision when games aired by Fox featured the glowing puck. There was much good-natured joking about Americans having difficulty seeing a black puck on a white sheet of ice.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:28 PM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


That was a fascinating read, thanks. More on the many-hats-wearing Stan Honey, ocean navigator extrordinare.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 5:45 PM on December 23, 2015


This is a cool engineering story, but holy cow that red streak is egregious. Ironically it totally obscures the actual puck. I may not be a huge sports fan but as a Canadian the whole thing is deeply, deeply heretical, of course. But it did make for a popular beer commercial.
posted by rodlymight at 5:57 PM on December 23, 2015


I'm not a hockey fan by any means, but, the first time I saw glow-puck, I hated it with a passion.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:19 PM on December 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


There was much good-natured joking about Americans having difficulty seeing a black puck on a white sheet of ice.

Maybe Americans just had crappier camera placement? I remember shots from the backside of the boards where there's just a bunch of players jostling together but you could see where the puck was.

Of course, back in those days baseball had pretty limited camera placements, too. And you had to sort of already know the game to get why you saw those four angles all the time.

Ultimately, HDTV made pretty much everything *much* easier to follow on TV.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:21 PM on December 23, 2015 [6 favorites]


I still blame Gary Bettman.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:30 PM on December 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


I was all set to hate it when it came out, but ended up having to admit kind of liking it. I remember wishing it was a little more subtle though, not like it was drawn on the screen with a fat crayon.

I hadn't thought about what an engineering PITA it would have been though. Not just tracking the puck like a fire control radar. Then you had to blend that into the displayed image, no matter where the camera was pointing. Sounds impossible. Amazing.

Ok, next I want some of those LEDs replaced by mini cameras and the images stitched together and stabilized to give me a puck's eye view in the direction of travel. Ready, go.
posted by ctmf at 7:05 PM on December 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


Hockey with a glowing puck was popular with the Mayans, though the game predates LEDs by a bit.
posted by fragmede at 7:10 PM on December 23, 2015


I still blame Gary Bettman.

Is it wrong of me to have searched for his name when reading the linked articles?
posted by a lungful of dragon at 8:10 PM on December 23, 2015


I wish they went more into the thought behind why it was not seeing the puck as a reason why people didn't watch the sport. And not, say, an entire region of the country that had no frozen ponds and no life-long exposure to the sport. (Though it's much, much harder to automate that away.)

I'm also amazed at the lateness that they brought a major stakeholder into the project--fucking around with the puck is not something you do lightly. The closest thing I can think of is the Jabulani in the 2008 World Cup. Most of the players weren't used to the ball, they loathed it, it didn't go where they thought it should go. I'm curious if they'd still use IR if they were to do it today--Opta tracks individual players in an insanely detailed way, though obviously they move way slower than a 90mph puck.

Also fascinating that the guy now works for Sportvision, the people who have completely changed how people watch football with their First and Ten technology. That's not nearly as intrusive as the trackable puck, but adds a lot to the game.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 8:24 PM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is super fascinating, and the connection to football's 1st & Ten technology is so interesting! That tech has made football so much more watchable for me and I'm sure many other people. Thanks for this.
posted by limeonaire at 10:50 PM on December 24, 2015


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