COLUMBUS, Ohio — For NHL players, coaches and fans, it’s been a subtle change to the game, most likely unnoticeable. For NHL on-ice officials, it’s a game-changer on the end of their arm.
Eight years ago, just after the league worked with tech giant Apple to equip players and coaches with tablets on the bench for real-time replays and adjustments, the league turned its sights toward making life better — and safer — for referees and linespeople.
The result, which began its rollout this season, is an Apple Watch loaded with custom software that sends game-clock updates to the officials’ wrists in the form of buzzes and pulses, allowing them to keep their eyes on the play rather than constantly looking away at the scoreboard.
On Saturday, when the Columbus Blue Jackets host the Detroit Red Wings in a Stadium Series showdown in Ohio Stadium, the device will be used in an outdoor game for the first time, the NHL said.
“I can’t tell you how many times you take your eyes off the play to check the clock, especially near the end of a period or the end of a penalty,” NHL executive vice president of hockey operations Stephen Walkom, a longtime former official, told The Athletic. “And it’s not like it’s one person taking their eyes off the play, either, it’s every official on the ice doing it.
“Even if it’s only for a split-second, things happen fast out there.”
The official’s watch receives a signal in the form of a haptic response (a vibration, a pulse, etc.) when there are 10 minutes, three minutes, two minutes and one minute remaining in a period, and when there are 10 seconds, three seconds, two seconds and one second remaining in a penalty. (If a power-play goal is scored, ending the penalty, no alerts are sent.)
Officials receive real-time data on their watches. (Courtesy of NHL)
The software, built by global digital power Presidio, is integrated with the NHL’s Oasis real-time stats feed, which is used for player-tracking and stats aggregation. That’s a much more accurate read, the league said, than linking to a specific arena’s scoreboard, as they vary greatly across the league.
Each arena is equipped with its own watches, stored in a case and fully charged between games. An IT employee watches over them and is on-site during games in case any problems arise. So far, there have been very few issues, Walkom said.
The watches are not mandatory, but since their debut in multiple NHL preseason games on Oct. 4, they have been adopted by more than 90 percent of the league’s 70 full-time officials, said Dave Lehanski, the NHL’s executive vice president of business development and innovation.
“The commissioner (Gary Bettman) hasn’t said, ‘You better do this, or else!’ so that’s an unbelievable number out of the gate,” Lehanski said. “A big reason for that, I believe, is the (officials) were involved from the very early part of this. They not only contributed to the overall solution, but they’ve had a stake in it.
“They feel they’ve been part of it, so there’s more buy-in.”
Andres de Corral, a vice president at Presidio, said an emphasis was put on building a simple, clean and efficient application.
“We’re pulling 25 data points into the watch,” de Corral said, “but just because you can do it, it doesn’t mean they need that information on their wrists. A big part of this was just dialing in exactly what the officials wanted on their wrists in the form of a non-visual alert to increase on-ice awareness.
“It was a really interesting and challenging project.”
One could make a strong case that officiating hockey is the most difficult of the major sports. It doesn’t have continual breaks in action, such as in football or baseball, and it moves much quicker — both the puck and the players — than basketball. And, with walls and glass surrounding the rink, there’s no quick way to escape the field of play to avoid contact.
As any fan knows, if you look away for even a second, the entire landscape of the ice can change. For officials, any time spent looking for the scoreboard high above the rink or on each end of the ice, is time they aren’t paying attention to the game on the ice.
That’s even more of a challenge for outdoor games, such as this weekend’s in Columbus. Referees Francis Charron and Kendrick Nicholson, and linesmen Jesse Marquis and Travis Gawryletz, have all worked several games in Nationwide Arena. But Ohio Stadium is new turf for any NHL officials.
One glance away from the ice and they can miss penalties, blow an offside call, or worse. Every half-second matters when a puck is fired or deflected in your direction, or when a towering player is heading your way.
And then there’s the penalty box. Officials need to be mindful when the penalty box is going to swing open, setting free a player who is in a hurry to get back on the ice and get his club back to even strength. Nobody wants a collision, and no official wants to affect play by getting in the way.
“If there’s a 200-pound person coming at me at 50 miles per hour, I should get out of the way,” Lehanski said.
Walkom said one concern was if the watches, which weigh barely an ounce, would be rugged enough to take the day-in, day-out beating that is life as an NHL official.
“Could it handle the bouncing around the ice, the smashing against the boards, the whack from an errant stick? When you’re in a pile of players, somebody’s going to bump your arm and that watch,” Walkom said. “Knock on wood, we’ve had good feedback that it’s stood up to a lot of jostling around out there.”
Walkom said he can see a difference — even if hockey fans, players and coaches haven’t yet. The biggest challenge for officials, he said, is developing a new habit of glancing quickly at their wrist after years of constantly checking the scoreboard.
“It’s been a great tool for giving guys a heads-up during the game,” he said. “They’re starting to feel safer with it and really trust it. That’s what we hoped for, but you don’t really know until you try it.”
(Top photo courtesy of NHL)
