> The person kept making the comment that she couldn't see/find the puck and it made it frustrating to watch.

Lifelong hockey fan, I never understood this complaint. I believe it was FOX that did the 'highlight the puck' thing for a few years in the 1990's.

You can't see the ball in American football, either.

But you don't need to. The guy that's running and everyone is trying to tackle? He has the ball. Just like the guy skating across the ice with his stick on the ground? He's got the puck.

When you CAN see the puck/ball, either someone lost control of it, or they're shooting/throwing/passing it.

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joenot443 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You're right - it was called FoxTrax, it's a fairly interesting piece of engineering.

It's pretty wild they were able to convince the NHL to use a modified puck with a battery and PCB inside, all so American viewers could better follow the action.

It was not well received in Canada :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoxTrax

	▲	SoftTalker 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It was not well received anywhere. However, in a bit of defense of the idea, TV at that time was still NTSC (~480p resolution at 24 frames/s) and it was pretty hard to see the puck even if you knew where it was.
	▲	tempest_ 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		As someone with low vision I loved when they added that and missed it when it was gone. I can't see the puck at all at a game and have to be very close to a television to see whats going on. As a result most sports are boring.

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tshaddox 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> You can't see the ball in American football, either.

The average play must be what, like 5 seconds? So if you lose where the ball is you're not going to be confused for long.

	▲	ISL 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		In far fewer than five seconds, one team can suddenly have the upper hand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O34BnFu8Kk

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NooneAtAll3 20 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> American football

handegg*

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baxtr 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What I’ve always found fascinating is that I could always clearly see the puck in any stadium, no matter how high up I sat. It was impossible to miss.

However, when watching hockey on TV, it’s incredibly difficult to see the damn thing.

	▲	magicalhippo 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		As a gamer this seems obvious to me. It's long been clear to me that our eyes are very adept at processing high-speed motion. Even the first 120Hz LCD gaming monitor, as sucky as it was, was miles bette than the 60 Hz on the market. So while technically our eyes might not discern individual frames higher than 25 FPS or so, our brain can absolutely process data from a much higher effeice framerate. The motion blur fast thing naturally produce for example, provides critical context clues. In gaming, sure 240 Hz won't help you see more as such, but it allows your eyes to do what they naturally do and give a much improved experience of fluidity and superior motion prediction.
	▲	apercu 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I find this interesting - before we switched from 5/4 aspect ratio, it was hard to find the puck because the camera was always chasing - but if you know hockey (e.g., watch enough of it) there are a lot of cues about where the puck is or will be, now that we have a wider aspect ratio.

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ISL 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The effect is so powerful, it fools professionals and the camera-operator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fioVbt7eF8

Even when the technique is known, everyone remains susceptible (the victim team in the above video is the trickster here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSNTfFg4XW0

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boogieknite 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

pretty common with my crowd of fans to even get a little giddy when the play is so deceptive that it fakes out the camera man and they dont realize theyre focused on the wrong player until a second or two passes

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pedalpete 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'd go a step further and say the ball/puck is not the interesting thing to watch.

Imagine if you couldn't see the players, and just saw the puck. Would that be interesting at all?

Think about tennis. There is the trope of people's eyes going back and forth following the ball, but I don't think they are following the ball directly. They are going back and forth looking at the person who is going to hit the ball.

	▲	tshaddox 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think you might be conflating knowing where the puck is with being able to fix your eyes on the puck at all times. The complaint is usually about the former. People are complaining that they don't know where the puck is.