ECAC Championships 2022

Back in late 2019, Clarkson Club TV (CCTv) was asked to broadcast the ECAC Hockey Championships in March 2020. Unfortunately, the world had other plans, as everything shut down due to the pandemic about one week before the tournament. After a modified season with no fans in attendance in 2021, the ECAC Hockey Championships finally returned to Lake Placid, NY in March 2022, and CCTv was asked to broadcast the games.

We had run smaller-scale broadcasts from various places on campus, including graduation, DIII sports, and performances, but a full D1 broadcast on ESPN+ is a whole different animal. We had used an all-in-one switcher (LiveStream HD550) in the past to broadcast a Clarkson-St. Lawrence game from the Lake Placid Olympic Center, but its capabilities were pretty limited. We upgraded to a Ross Graphite based system for our switching and graphics, with replays provided by our existing NewTek 3Play unit. I was able to orchestrate the planning and execution of this broadcast from an engineering standpoint, loading everything into a server rack that was just about ready to plug and play once we got to the arena. Not only did we provide the outbound stream to ESPN+, we also sent a feed to the jumbotron in the arena, allowing us to show replays in house.