I replayed the goal in slow motion and I was stunned at how quickly spotlights appeared on the goal scorer and the goal horn goes off followed shortly by “Chelsea Dagger”. Mix in scoreboard messages throughout the arena and a spinning red light… and you have a lot of moving parts!

Amazingly, all this happens with very few errors, (except of course for those crazy Canucks-Skip to about 13:40) and all in less then a second or so. Pretty amazing given the speed and unpredictability of Hockey. Compared to sports like Baseball, Football and Basketball… scoring is few and far between and can happen unexpectedly.

So, I contacted the Blackhawks… and long story short: I’m getting a behind the scenes tour of what goes into all the game day presentation at the United Center!

If you have any questions you would like asked, leave a comment and I’ll do what i can to get answers. My questions include things like… How big is the staff? How do they communicate? If its by radio, can anyone listen in if they find the frequency? Who decides that a goal is scored? Are the spotlights manually operated? How do they determine who scored? If it’s automated, who makes the software that tracks players on the ice and aims the spotlights? How is the music/organ/scoreboard videos orchestrated? What does it take to get a job working on game production? What sort of turnover is there? Do they also work Bulls games? What computers and networks are in use? And how secure are they?

I hope that this is the beginning of a series of blog posts or a new website that explores the technology behind things we take for granted. Yes, I’m a nerd… but I’m betting that there are many others like me out there!