NBC Sports Chicago to televise real-time animated NHL game between Blackhawks and Stars

The Chicago Blackhawks have announced its collaboration with NBC Sports Chicago and the NHL to produce the first-ever sports broadcast to be animated in real-time.

Serving as an alternate production to the main broadcast, the game will see Chicago host the Dallas Stars on April 2 at 2:30 PM Mountain time.

The game will be preceded by an animated pre-game show.

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Gameday goes animated! 🏒🎈 On April 6th tune in on @NBCSBlackhawks for the first ever local animated sports telecast!

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6:02 PM · Mar 25, 2024

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The format will be similar to the NHL’s experiment with Big City Greens, the animated children’s television show that saw Disney Channel, ESPN and the NHL team up over the past two years. The technology is built on the league’s NHL EDGE positional data, which is used for player and puck tracking.

This will mark the first time a team’s regional broadcast partner has done something like this in the NHL

The production will be assisted by a Hawk-Eye system, a computer system used in various sports—most notably racquet sports like tennis—to help track movement. Together, the technologies will recreate the action in real-time to be as close as possible to a representation of what is happening in the game in real life.

The game will be produced in association with Beyond Sports, who worked with the league on the two Big City Greens games.

“This is an extraordinary opportunity to combine the talents at NBC Sports Chicago, the Chicago Blackhawks and the NHL to produce this first-ever, local, animated pro game telecast,” NBCUniversal Local Chicago’s VP of sports content John Schippman said in a statement. “We’re excited and proud to be delivering a new and fun way for families and younger fans to experience this wonderful sport like never before.”

According to the Blackhawks, the game will also serve as a birthday celebration for team mascot Tommy Hawk, with some “surprise visits from Tommy’s friends.”

Play-by-play host Chris Vosters will lead the commentary team, which will include former NHLers Domenic Moore, Adam Burish, and Tony Granato as analysts. NBC Sports Chicago will carry the traditional broadcast with John Wiedeman and Darren Pang.