NEW YORK — Keemotion has struck a deal with the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres at it seeks to expand its smart camera technology beyond the basketball court and onto the ice rink.
At Hashtag Sports this week in an interview with SportTechie, Keemotion CEO Milton Lee expanded on its deal with the Sabres, struck earlier this year, saying it has been ‘developing well” and has helped the company discover how to tweak its technology to better serve hockey.
“They’re kind of our laboratory to test the way the sport moves, the puck moves, to figure out what we have to key on to produce great live productions,” he said.
To put this partnership on display, Keemotion is livestreaming an 11-day hockey marathon at the Sabres’ newly-built HarborCenter complex. The 11 Day PowerPlay, as it’s being called, is expected to raise more than $1 million in cancer research funding for Buffalo’s Roswell Park Cancer Institute.
The event is being captured on Keemotion’s automated cameras, which feature motion-detecting technology and proprietary software that follow the action back and forth across the rink without human input.
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The event is on track to break the Guinness World Record for longest hockey game. The previous record of 250 hours, 3 minutes and 20 seconds was set in Alberta two years ago.
Lee said working with hockey arenas is important because many times there are several teams using the same rink, particularly at the high school, college and minor-league levels.
Over time, he envisions a world where all levels of the hockey world are using technologies such as Keemotion’s cameras to capture footage at practices, to live-stream games, to share clips easily to social media and to offer instant replay for referees.
“They could really leverage an automated technology like ours,” he said. “We think it’s going to be a terrific opportunity. It’s a sport that’s starving for high-quality production.”
Previously, Keemotion’s cameras were targeted specifically for the basketball court.