Bettman: Technology to determine puck location 'not ready for prime time'

[Stoner]

I'm pulling this discussion from the Sabres-Stars thread because it's pretty interesting. Some posters argued that the league has access to the technology to determine, for example, if the Sabres tied the game with about 11 seconds left in Dallas, but is holding back for cost concerns. On a related note, Gary Bettman said "no expense is spared" in the current review process and argued that the league's system is best among the major sports and even one that other sports study.

 

 

"You will be able to know it was there, the technology will tell you," Bettman said. "That would be aspirational, something that we're working on. But it isn't ready for prime time. Because anything we install better work, and it better work right."

http://buffalonews.com/2017/01/28/bettman-says-league-continuing-study-replay-technology-goals/

[Sabres Fan in NS]

My position on all this technology stuff is well known.

 

For the record, I am totally against any and all technology in any form in any sport.

[skaught]

I'm sure there's all kinds of technical difficulties to get something like this working with perfect accuracy. It's not exactly an easy problem to solve. It's one of those things that sounds simple to achieve on paper. Sure just put a chip in it to detect when the puck is completely over the line.

 

Honestly, I'd be surprised if they're anywhere close to the accuracy of someone just looking at multiple camera angles.

[Weave]

I don't buy for a minute that the technology to do it is still in the aspirational stage.  We have autonomous driving cars, and jets that can land and take off by themselves.  We have automated manufacturing systems that can detect part flaws naked to the human eye and choose what bins to move those parts to.  This isn't about technology development, it is about creating the software to interact with technology that already exists.  It may be aspirational in that the league doesn't want to commit the dollars needed to design and fully debug the system yet, but it sure isn't aspirastional based on technology.

Edited January 29, 2017 by We've

[WildCard]

My position on all this technology stuff is well known.

 

For the record, I am totally against any and all technology in any form in any sport.

Same here. Replay ruins the game in any sport

[Tom Backyard]

Comparable technology already in place For FIFA.

 

http://quality.fifa.com/en/Goal-Line-Technology/Get-to-know-goal-line-technology/How-it-helps-referees/

 

Gary Bettman: not ready for prime time.

[skaught]

I don't buy for a minute that the technology to do it is still in the aspirational stage.  We have autonomous driving cars, and jets that can land and take off by themselves.  We have automated manufacturing systems that can detect part flaws naked to the human eye and choose what bins to move those parts to.  This isn't about technology development, it is about creating the software to interact with technology that already exists.  It may be aspirational in that the league doesn't want to commit the dollars needed to design and fully debug the system yet, but it sure isn't aspirastional based on technology.

 

Good point, I forgot the technology for tracking the position of the puck was created a long time ago, remember those blue/red puck streaks... https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ece848d/lectures/03_some_sports_technologies.pdf

[Stoner]

Are we fans — especially we paranoid Buffalo fans — ready to accept a call that technology makes when our eyes say something else? Say young Marner's shot slides under Lehner's pad and you can't see it over the line. Good goal! I'm sure we'll be very trusting of that.

 

The league would really be opening itself up to charges of corruption and even claims of hacking. Wonder who Vlad likes? Probably the Wings.

 

I'm not as anti-technology as NS and WC, but I think I'd draw the line at what we have now. (Minus, of course, the abomination of reviewing offsides.)

[Weave]

Are we fans — especially we paranoid Buffalo fans — ready to accept a call that technology makes when our eyes say something else? Say young Marner's shot slides under Lehner's pad and you can't see it over the line. Good goal! I'm sure we'll be very trusting of that.

 

The league would really be opening itself up to charges of corruption and even claims of hacking. Wonder who Vlad likes? Probably the Wings.

 

I'm not as anti-technology as NS and WC, but I think I'd draw the line at what we have now. (Minus, of course, the abomination of reviewing offsides.)

 

I want those stupid replays of offsides gone.  The same technology that can sense a puck clearing a plane (goal line) can be used to detect a puck entering a zone before a skate.  I'm in favor of THAT use of technology.  Video replay just sucks the excitement out of a game.  At least with puck and skate sensors the play is whistled dead before the excitement can get yanked out from under you.

[PromoTheRobot]

Same here. Replay ruins the game in any sport

Which is why a detection system would be a great thing.

 

Why not install the sensors and use them as an adjunct to the official's call? When you have something visually inconclusive, the sensor would tell you what's what.

I want those stupid replays of offsides gone. The same technology that can sense a puck clearing a plane (goal line) can be used to detect a puck entering a zone before a skate. I'm in favor of THAT use of technology. Video replay just sucks the excitement out of a game. At least with puck and skate sensors the play is whistled dead before the excitement can get yanked out from under you.

Actually automating the offsides call is way harder than automating a goal call.

[SwampD]

Which is why a detection system would be a great thing.

Why not install the sensors and use them as an adjunct to the official's call? When you have something visually inconclusive, the sensor would tell you what's what.

Like the reviews in tennis at the US open.

[bunomatic]

What I'd like to see is the N.H.L. aspire to grow a set of ballz to admit when they've ####ed up a call. It was 2 if not 3 times in that game.

[Doctor of Philhousley]

Which is why a detection system would be a great thing.

 

Why not install the sensors and use them as an adjunct to the official's call? When you have something visually inconclusive, the sensor would tell you what's what.

 

Actually automating the offsides call is way harder than automating a goal call.

Bingo. Tell us if the puck crossed the line, unless I am missing something this should really speed up the process rather than slow it down. I will restate what I said in an earlier post, can we let refs decide in real-time whether there was goalie interference/off-sides and leave this technology to determine if puck crossed the line? 

[MattPie]

My guess is the tech good, but not as good as cameras and the mark one eyeball. Locating an object in 3D down to mm isn't as easy as it sounds. I read through the wiki article on goal-line tech (more informative than the FIFA article which relies on "magic happens"). I have a couple thoughts on how this affects hockey. One, the puck is not a sphere. The magnetic and electrical systems seem to use a sensor suspended in the center of the ball, which isn't going to work for a puck. Perhaps a system could be made with multiple sensors to detect the puck orientation, but I'm not sure if the detection systems would be able to tell the different sensors apart. The magnetic version almost certainly wouldn't. Also, none of the sports mentioned have pieces of steel skating around disturbing the precise magnetic/electrical fields; although I'm not sure that's enough to make an appreciable difference. The optical systems seem to rely on the puck being seen, which is an issue as the puck is small compared to a soccer ball and easily hidden by the players.

 

You could use the magnetic/electrical system with pucks (assuming it works through pads and isn't disturbed by skates) to detect if a flat puck was in, but it would give false negatives (says the puck didn't cross the line but it did) when the pusk is on edge. Imagine this place when an on-edge puck isn't called a goal, or maybe worse, the sensor says no goal but the ref says it was on edge and crossed the line. It'd be fandimonium (and not the good kind).

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goal-line_technology

[Taro T]

My guess is the tech good, but not as good as cameras and the mark one eyeball. Locating an object in 3D down to mm isn't as easy as it sounds. I read through the wiki article on goal-line tech (more informative than the FIFA article which relies on "magic happens"). I have a couple thoughts on how this affects hockey. One, the puck is not a sphere. The magnetic and electrical systems seem to use a sensor suspended in the center of the ball, which isn't going to work for a puck. Perhaps a system could be made with multiple sensors to detect the puck orientation, but I'm not sure if the detection systems would be able to tell the different sensors apart. The magnetic version almost certainly wouldn't. Also, none of the sports mentioned have pieces of steel skating around disturbing the precise magnetic/electrical fields; although I'm not sure that's enough to make an appreciable difference. The optical systems seem to rely on the puck being seen, which is an issue as the puck is small compared to a soccer ball and easily hidden by the players.

 

You could use the magnetic/electrical system with pucks (assuming it works through pads and isn't disturbed by skates) to detect if a flat puck was in, but it would give false negatives (says the puck didn't cross the line but it did) when the pusk is on edge. Imagine this place when an on-edge puck isn't called a goal, or maybe worse, the sensor says no goal but the ref says it was on edge and crossed the line. It'd be fandimonium (and not the good kind).

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goal-line_technology

If you have as few as 3 sensors/chips in the puck (1 at center, 1 located particularly near surface along puck diameter, & 1 located particularly near center of 1 of the flat surfaces of the puck) you can tell orientation & location of puck at any instant.

 

Would have initial tooling costs, but when thinking about how many pucks would get made, the price per puck would be minimal.

 

Would expect, similar to your comment above, that one of the toughest hurdles to overcome would be how the skates & composite materials of both sticks & equipment distort the signals. (Radioactive isotopes could probably overcome the distortions, but people would probably have issues w/ whatever ones were chosen. ;))

[Stoner]

Is this a solution looking for a problem?

[pi2000]

If they make the goalie equipment small enough they'll be able to see the puck when it's under them... right?

 

Or how about a depression in the ice behind the goalline, so the puck falls in and gets sucked into a hole, like superchex bubble hockey then the ref hits a button and the puck drops from the scoreboard.

 

And whatever happened to goal judge who sat in the stands behind the net? That would catch a lot of these situations where the has a bad sightline.

[MattPie]

If they make the goalie equipment small enough they'll be able to see the puck when it's under them... right?

 

Or how about a depression in the ice behind the goalline, so the puck falls in and gets sucked into a hole, like superchex bubble hockey then the ref hits a button and the puck drops from the scoreboard.

 

And whatever happened to goal judge who sat in the stands behind the net? That would catch a lot of these situations where the has a bad sightline.

 

Goal judge: Seems like watching an above-the-net feed of the goal is a better perspective for seeing the puck cross the line. If you play around with NHL.tv they usually have a multi-cam feed for games, where there are three camera feeds: broadcast feed (what you normally see), and the two over the net feeds. The strange thing is they're usually not in sync very well, but it's interesting. I'd bet there's still a goal judge somewhere in the building that just watches that feed.

http://www.denverpost.com/2007/08/29/goal-judges-uprooted-seats-become-available/