SUNDRE – With playoffs just around the corner, the Sundre Minor Hockey Association was pleased to announce the local launch of a LiveBarn service.
LiveBarn provides live and on-demand online broadcasts of amateur and youth sports from venue locations across the United States and Canada that now includes the Sundre Arena on a subscription basis.
While some setups at other facilities vary, the live broadcast feed at the Sundre Arena features one camera mounted above the penalty boxes at centre ice that provides a wide-angle view of the rink and pans back and forth as it tracks movement.
“It follows the action,” said Amber Jenkins, the association’s vice-president.
The service went live during the Sundre Rec Hockey Association’s annual home tournament that was held Jan. 31 to Feb. 2.
Shawn MacNeil, a past president of the association, couldn’t attend one of the games in person but was able to tune in from home.
“I was actually pleasantly surprised,” MacNeil said. “The picture quality is really good on it, and it actually tracks the play up and down the ice ... I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting. It was just a lot clearer than I thought.”
Although there is only one camera, there are two viewing options, he said.
“You can either pick pano – which basically shows the whole ice at once and it doesn’t move – and then there’s another button you can click, and then that’s the one that actually tracks the play up and down the ice,” he said.
“Once I found out that it could follow the play up and down, it was a lot better,” he said, adding there’s also a setting to display the clock and score.
The association initially aspired to introduce LiveBarn back in 2022 when provincials were hosted at the Sundre Arena, she said.
“But the internet at the arena was not fast enough,” Jenkins said.
Although the municipality has since then finally been connected to high-speed internet service with Xplore’s fibre optic gigabit broadband network, town-owned facilities like the arena have not yet been hooked up.
“Xplore is not an option at this time,” she said.
Even Starlink was not an option, she said, adding the company’s hardware is not compatible with the LiveBarn service.
So, Jenkins said the association opted to sign up for a connection through RMS Plus, which is a local provider based out of James River north of Sundre.
“We had to wait for town approval for the internet to be installed,” she said, adding the association had just recently received a green light.
Even if the arena should eventually be connected to Xplore’s network, Jenkins does not expect to switch over from RMS Plus to ensure a more consistent bandwidth required for a higher-quality stream.
“You need your own line,” she said, adding the broadcast could be impacted if there were too many people at once tapping into and drawing data from a shared public WiFi.
After aspiring to bring LiveBarn to Sundre for the past couple years, Jenkins said finally reaching the finish line felt good.
“We have a lot of dads that work away that would like to watch a game but they can’t,” she said, adding there are also distant family relations that will now have the opportunity to tune in as well.
“You can watch anywhere, as long as you have internet.”
The only other caveat is that LiveBarn is a paid subscription service.
“We do get a kickback from it, so it’s okay because we have to pay the internet bill,” she said with a chuckle.
MacNeil said, “You’d have to watch a fair amount of hockey to make it worthwhile. But the good thing about it, once you buy your subscription, you can tune into any of their venues that have the LiveBarn.”
His aunt and uncle who live in Nova Scotia decided to subscribe after he told them about the service, and “they got to watch my kids play hockey for the first time ever.”
That’s a two-way street.
“I’m going to watch my cousin’s kids play this weekend out in Nova Scotia because now that I’ve got it, I can watch them play,” he said.
“I’ve never got to see them play. So, it’s kind of cool that way.”
And local hockey fans can also follow their teams – whether the Sundre Minor Hockey Association Huskies or the Sundre Rec Hockey Association Mustangs – when they’re on the road, provided of course the hosting arena also has LiveBarn, he said.
But the service offers more benefits than the ability to watch games from afar, said Jenkins.
“It’s also good for coaching because they can replay it,” she said, adding practices can also be reviewed.
Although the service does not allow for instant replays to pause a game and verify close calls, recorded footage can be studied and analyzed afterward, which is valuable in helping players to visualize errors on the path to improvement, she said.
“It’s a good coaching tool.”
The two Sundre U9 Huskies teams are hosting a home tournament this weekend on Feb. 7-9 with six other squads coming to play.
