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Comment by boomboomsubban | Hacker News Reader

The more you watch (and probably play) hockey, the less you follow the puck and the more you can infer where it is from body positioning. That's why long time fans like your father can enjoy televised hockey more, while everyone can enjoy live games.

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I actually got the feel, now when I think of it I couldn't see the puck flying during the shots. I guess it had something to do with my love for soccer where I can see it curling into top corner. While I appreciated the art of doing the same in hockey, I believe I felt like I couldn't take part of the enjoyment of seeing it flying into the net.

Oh yeah, that never gets better. Tracking a puck going 100mph(160km/hr) on a ~30fps broadcast is basically impossible. Even modern HD doesn't help much.

Heh. Brings to mind the Fox Sports 'FoxTrax' [1] which placed a glow on the puck. Hockey fans hated it. I'm not sure if non-hockey fans cared either way.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoxTrax

Oh no, the glowing dot! But remember this was well before HDTV. Watching hockey on a grainy old TV was not accessible for those who didn’t know the game. However, I don’t think it was successful in bringing in new viewers, and people who were already fans hated it because, well, it sucked.

With the puck tracki technology being reused for advanced stats fans, I wonder if they'll try something similar except make it optional on web broadcasts or will the FoxTrax legacy prevent them from attempting it.

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