Something very cool is happening at the Honda Center in Aneheim. The FSN West feed on NHL Center Ice is showing the LA Kings / Anaheim Ducks game. That’s normal. What isn’t is that there are no 
announcers. Just the sounds of the game and the crowd. Oh, and all the camera angles are from ice level with what they call “Rinkside View.”
So far, the only speaking by any announcers is the typical quick interview with a player at the end of the period and a look at graceful glides of the Zamboni with FSN personality Bill MacDonald riding along. FSN has also taken you the viewer to the vantage from the broadcast booth and the organist.
The 2nd intermission also brought us a short video called “Sport Science” talking about the cat-like reflexes of a hockey goalie. It was filmed at Kettler Capitals Iceplex with Olaf Kolzig and Alex Ovechkin. An Ovechkin slapshot from 25 feet reached Kolzig in .22 seconds. It took .11 seconds for Kolzig to locate the puck, but moved his glove into position in .10 seconds, which proved that Kolzig does indeed have cat-like quickness.
Now for the start of the 3rd from ice level without announcers.
Had I known this was happening, I would have started watching at the beginning of the game and not 3 minutes left in the 2nd. Perhaps Comcast SportsNet might like to try this out once. After all, they broadcasted a game with the announcers between the benches.
[Update: A highlight video from the Rinkside View broadcast can be seen here.]
7 Comments
I saw that video with Ovie and Olie a couple weeks ago on the local comcast channel when flipping around. Wasn’t it snazzy?
I think that they should let us watch sports on television like we can with movies on DVD.
There would be multiple sound channels (commentators, rink noise, fan noise, etc) and we could chose which ones we want or don’t want.
[…] Here is that Sport Science video featuring Kolzig and Ovechkin aired during the Ducks/Kings game […]
What a cool idea. I used to wish they would do that with baseball games….when I used to watch - said the former(?) Baltimore Oriole fan.
I liked it!
Started watching it in the 2nd period as well. It was the best sporting viewing experience I ever had. Felt like I was in the best 100 section seat for every play.
I remember a game on tv where the sound was screwy and there was no play-by-play.
But what was even better was when a game at Verizon was having sound problems and there was no piped in noise, just the game announcer. I have no problem with someone making the official announcements of goals and penalties. But aside from that… It was all up to the fans. THAT was most enjoyable.
Post a Comment