Forget VAR, the NHL is using Apple Watches to help referees

Ice hockey referees in the US are taking to the cold stuff sporting Apple Watch models equipped with a special app designed to help them wrangle the rough and tumble on-ice action.

The NHL Watch Comms App on Apple Watch and Apple Watch Ultra models (below) will deliver haptic notifications giving refs game clock and penalty clock countdowns, while helping them keep tabs on which players have been banished to the penalty box.

The app is being introduced in line with the National Hockey League’s Stadium Series, where games will be played outdoors at Ohio Stadium. In a blog post this week, the league said the app gives refs a helping hand in lieu of the giant scoreboard hanging above centre ice.

“The normal in-game environment – with roaring crowds and lightning-fast speeds – has certain challenges when it comes to communication between officials, and an outdoor environment can be even more challenging,” the League said.

The app has been made by a developer called Presidio in collaboration with Apple and the NHL. “We wanted to make sure that the officials had really good awareness and were able to keep their eyes on play,” Andres de Corral, vice president of digital services at Presidio told The Verge. “So by enabling haptic responses, we were able to provide non-visual cues to the officials.”

It’s not the first partnership the NHL has struck with Apple. Since 2017, coaches and players in the league have received real-time video on iPad models to help them “make in game adjustments.” The league is looking into branching into direct communication between the four officials on the ice, other officials in the arena, and those in the video review centre in Toronto, Canada.

Non-invasive and helpful? Hooray!

Given the weekly controversies surrounding VAR in the Premier League and the wider football world, it’s nice to see some non-invasive technology helping the officials with no sense of controversy involved!

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