2022 Hockey Users Conference Recap + everything you need to know for the coming season
Catapult’s annual Hockey Users Conference was held this August which brought together our growing community of Video Coaches across NCAA and NHL. Each year, this Conference gives users an opportunity to learn, train, and network with Catapult staff and Thunder users worldwide.
The hockey conference & Its Impact
Catapult’s user conferences such as this promote a new level of connection between users in various ways. For Catapult Staff and users alike, this provides an opportunity to learn & improve our products year over year. This year, users were able to get their questions answered through training sessions, learn about new product updates, and get hands-on with our next-gen solutions.
Partnerships with teams like the recently crowned world champion Canadian National Women’s Hockey Team and NHL teams like the LA Kings demonstrate the growth in the use of technology across the elite levels of hockey. Catapult has also noticed this use of technology starting to filter down to European leagues and other hockey markets globally.
With this increased adoption of technology amongst teams, Catapult feels it’s essential to be more than just a supplier of technology. This means setting up users for a successful season with our products in hand.
→ Click here to speak to the team about product training and/or to register your interest in the 2023 Hockey Users Conference.
What’s new for Thunder Hockey ‘22
Before Catapult and its teams move to a next-generation video platform, the Catapult product team felt it was important to also invest in the existing product to ensure teams and practitioners are still using the most precise video technology in hockey for this coming season.
With that in mind, at the Hockey User Conference, Senior Field and Service Engineer Eddie Bishop took Video Coaches through various Thunder Hockey updates for the coming season. These included SQL, Security improvements and feature updates.:
SQL updates: Catapult’s current video solution for hockey has been upgraded to support Microsoft SQL 2019.
- Catapult’s Support Team will assist users with hardware upgrade requirements.
- Our team has tools available to streamline the upgrade workflow.
Security Improvements: We are improving security for Thunder across every user.
- You’ll now have greater control over database access permissions.
- Please note, backend security updates will not affect current user workflows.
Feature updates: New Capture Workflows and Platform.
- Access new capture hardware, the AVMatrix.
- Capture multiple angles of video on a single laptop.
- The toolbar has been updated with new icons on the edit & playlist toolbars.
Hockey conference highlight reel:
→ Click here to learn more about Catapult’s solutions for hockey.
Catapult Next-Generation Video Platform for Hockey
As mentioned earlier, coaches were able to get hands-on with our new platform during this year’s conference. This next-generation platform leverages the expertise Catapult gained when it acquired SBG Sports Software back in 2021. Since then, this has successfully led to the development of integrated performance data + video analysis and this is currently available to soccer and rugby teams. This means that athletes’ physical data is connected to video footage and viewable at every game moment.
This next-generation platform will soon be coming to hockey teams. In the meantime, watch this video to learn more about how our integration platform works for Soccer and Rugby teams.
Establishing a new level of team-wide collaboration
This integrated platform opens new doors to improve team-wide collaboration. With its seamless sharing and streaming capabilities, teams can now be connected to performance insights across Coaches, practitioners, Athletes, and beyond. The integrated solution for hockey will be cross-platform, provide next-level analysis, Livestream and remote sharing, new presentation tools, and connected data sets. Here’s how team roles will be impacted:
- Video coaches and analysts will have a no-code solution that uncovers insights, faster. This also means coaches can upload & combine unlimited amounts of data and video from multiple sources to gain a complete picture of your team.
- Coaches & Athletes can access video and insights in a variety of ways. Teams can stream video during games from any device or location. After games, video, insights, and presentations are shared across the entire team using the Hub, our cloud-based sharing platform.
- Performance & training staff can now bring context to their player data collected with Vector devices. This means game outcomes and key moments will be accessible through video across every performance metric. This will improve how practitioners approach and manage athlete injury risk and recovery.
Preparing for the upcoming season
With the 2023 preseason fast approaching, Catapult wants to ensure that teams are up to speed on our latest updates and best practices. For those users who were not able to attend this year’s conference, we encourage you to get connected to our customer success team.
To do so, reach out to the team to discuss this further, click here. Alternatively, learn more about Catapult’s solutions for hockey by clicking here.
Innovating Women’s Hockey: PWHL’s Leap Through Video Analysis
Through an innovative partnership with Catapult, the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) is elevating the game of women’s hockey by introducing advanced video analysis for all teams. This collaboration underscores a shared commitment to advancing the sport, offering new insights and strategies to coaches and players alike. Learn more about how this technology-driven approach is transforming the landscape of women’s ice hockey.