NBC Rips Off At Least 10 Lazy Papers I Did in High School, Presents You the Science of NHL Hockey
January 26, 2012 Leave a comment
Of course, I kid, as these actually look like some work was put into them. From the esteemed Chris Botta of the New York Times:
NBC News and NBC Sports have produced a series of 10 educational segments called, “Science of N.H.L. Hockey,” that will debut during NBC Sports Network’s coverage of the All-Star festivities this weekend.
The videos, which feature the N.H.L. players Matt Moulson, Pekka Rinne, Brenden Morrow, Erik Johnson and Jaroslav Halak, were made as a learning tool for teachers and students to use in the classroom. Created in conjunction with NBC Learn (the educational arm of NBC News), the N.H.L. and the National Science Foundation, the segments, which will be aligned to lesson plans and national and state education standards, are available to the public free of cost.
“Hockey is my lifelong sport of passion,” said Sam Flood, executive producer of NBC Sports. “To be able to help people understand how a slap shot takes off, that really excites me as a producer and as a hockey player. The segments have frame-by-frame breakdowns so viewers can really see and understand the science behind the movements.”
During the broadcast of the All-Star Skills Competition on NBC Sports Network on Saturday night, Flood plans to show the segment on the science of the slap shot before Zdeno Chara and the rest of the players take part in the Hardest Shot competition.
The segments will be available on NBCLearn.com, NBCSports.com, Science360.com and NHL.com and will be broadcast on NHL Network and on arena scoreboards throughout the league.
New York, NY—Jan 26, 2012—NBC News’ educational arm, NBC Learn, and the NBC Sports Group are teaming up with the National Hockey League (NHL) and National Science Foundation (NSF) to release “Science of NHL Hockey”— an informative 10-part video series exploring the science behind the fastest game on ice that will be distributed across several NBCU platforms. Made especially for students and teachers to use in the classroom, these videos will be aligned to lesson plans and national state education standards, and are available to the public cost-free on NBCLearn.com, NBCSports.com and Science360.gov. NBC News’ Lester Holt narrates the series.
The “Science of NHL Hockey” videos will debut during NBC Sports Network’s all-encompassing coverage of the 2012 NHL All-Star Weekend from Ottawa January 26-29, including a select number of videos airing throughout the Honda SuperSkills Competition on Sat., January 28, from 7-9:30 p.m. ET. The NHL will feature the videos on NHL.com, NHL Network in the U.S. and Canada and in a number of arenas throughout the League. The series will also appear in retail venues across the country, including Wovenmedia outlets, and on American Airlines in-flight entertainment and NBC’s affiliate stations.
This collaboration between NBC Learn, NBC Sports and NSF uses the universal appeal of hockey to drive an understanding of complicated scientific concepts. Students and teachers see how the principles of science enable players to perform actions such as quickly stopping on ice, passing the puck to a teammate, shooting a slap shot and making a great save.
The science is broken down by capturing the athletes’ movements with a state-of-the-art, high-speed Phantom camera, which has the ability to capture movement at rates of up to 10,000 frames per second. These dynamic visuals allow for frame-by-frame illustrations of specific scientific principles such as Newton’s Three Laws of Motion, kinematics and velocity. Other video episodes analyze the hockey science behind reflexes and reaction time, statistics, vectors, linear motion, geometry and more.
NBC Sports Group oversaw the Phantom video shoot in September 2011 during the yearly media tour sponsored by the NHL and its players association. NBC Sports Group also provided research and technical support throughout the project.
Current NHL players who participated in the video series include:
Jaroslav Halak, Goaltender, St. Louis Blues
Erik Johnson, Defenseman, Colorado Avalanche
Brenden Morrow, Left Wing, Dallas Stars
Matt Moulson, Left Wing, New York Islanders
Pekka Rinne, Goaltender, Nashville Predators
In each video, an NSF-supported scientist explains a selected scientific principle, while NHL athletes describe how the principle applies to their respective positions. Series scientists supported by NSF are: Edward Burger, Williams College; Irene Fonseca, Carnegie Mellon; Jim Gates, University of Maryland; Robert Gehrz, University of Minnesota; and Patricia Shewokis, Drexel University. The videos also include actual game footage provided by the NHL, and the lesson plans that accompany the videos will be provided by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA).
“Science of NHL Hockey” follows in the footsteps of the “Science of NFL Football” and “Science of the Olympic Winter Games” collections, which are part of an ongoing “Science of Sports” collaboration with the NSF that was awarded a 2010 Sports Emmy for “Outstanding New Approaches Sports Programming.”
“Wayne Gretzky once said, ‘The only way a kid is going to practice is if it’s total fun for him… and it was for me,’” said Morris Aizenman, Senior Scientist for NSF’s Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences. “‘Science of NHL Hockey’ is an NSF and NBC Learn project that continues our effort to make science total fun for students. We hope, after watching these videos that students will also want to learn and practice science.”
“Building on the innovative partnership that NBC Learn has with NSF and NBC Sports, we are thrilled to expand the ‘Science of Sports’ franchise to include hockey,” said Soraya Gage, Executive Producer of NBC Learn. “These one-of-a-kind videos have set a new precedent for teaching science in the classroom, by literally breaking down concepts and illustrating their real life application through sports.”
“The NHL is excited to partner with NBC and the National Science Foundation on this special project,” said Charles Coplin, Executive Vice President of Content for the NHL. “Students, teachers and NHL fans everywhere will experience hockey in a unique way through the spectacular footage captured during filming with the players.”
“It was exciting to be part of a unique project that utilizes hockey to help educate students on science and physics,” said Brenden Morrow of the Dallas Stars. “It was fun to participate in and was very interesting. I learned a lot myself.”
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