Rogers To Beam First-Ever Live NHL Game in 4K This Weekend

Rogers Communications, which last week beamed the world’s first live NBA game in 4K (see 1601140002), will repeat that milestone for hockey Saturday when it shows the first-ever NHL game in 4K, it said in a Monday announcement. The first NHL 4K game will be a Hockey Night in Canada telecast produced by Sportsnet and available to Rogers customers with a NextBox 4K set-top on Channel 999 when the Toronto Maple Leafs face the Montreal Canadiens, live from Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, Rogers said. The 4K viewing “changes the game experience, drawing the fan onto the ice like never before,” it said. “Viewers can see the flex of the stick and the grooves in the ice,” while the live game producers can zoom in on key plays at up to 500 percent magnification “without motion blur,” it said. Saturday’s game is the first of a 20-game NHL 4K broadcast commitment by Rogers and Sportsnet in 2016, Rogers said.