NHL videos with with overhead camera?

[RustyMoon]

I have a couple of ideas for analytics what I would like to explore further. But to be able to collect the data set for the project, I would need to be able to see all positions of players on the ice at once. Is there any website which would offer overhead/bird's eye/top-down video archives of NHL games (preferable) or live streams?

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[Michael Farkas]

It exists, as I've seen it myself. But it's not publicly available to my knowledge...

 

[Filthy Dangles]

I believe NHL.TV/Gamecenter has something like a 'Multi Cam' feed which has an overhead look, but I don't think every game has this cam available. And i'm not sure it's truly a birds eye view one.

E: this screenshot from a few years ago seems to be what I am talking about.

The frame in the bottom-middle, would be your best best, not truly overhead but might capture all 10 skaters for a decent amount of time.

 

[RustyMoon]

Thanks! I will check it out. That bottom-middle camera angle looks good enough for my purposes; maybe not all 10 skaters all the time, but probably most of them anyway.

 

[Canis Latrans]

Thanks! I will check it out. That bottom-middle camera angle looks good enough for my purposes; maybe not all 10 skaters all the time, but probably most of them anyway.

I think it was at least two seasons ago, but a team or two had implemented an overview/bird's eye view type camera. I think it was the Flyers. You could select it as your camera for nhl.tv, however, there were complaints from fans in the upper decks that it was obstructing their views as it was lower than the highest seats, so they removed. I think it only lasted a few games that season. There's a news story about it if you want to dig, pretty sure the Flyers were the team.

I don't know why they couldn't just raise the camera higher up. If you're interested in doing some sort of machine vision tracking, I think another issue with that feed was that the camera had to pan between the two ends of the rink, so that throws off the ability to just stationarily mark things like face-off circles, the nets, and the boards.