TelePresence scores big with the commish
Cisco’s TelePresence has won a fan in the National Hockey League. At least, Commissioner Gary Bettman, who was absolutely gushing about it in this dispatch from NHL.com.
Bettman hosted a press conference in Pam Beach, FL., virtually attended by reporters from New York, Toronto and San Jose. Bettman could see them, they could see Bettman – on life-size HD screens.
Even though those giant real-time and replay screens at Yankee Stadium and in Dallas are old news by now, the NHL is claiming a first among major sports organizations to use TelePresence to deliver new news — through virtual press conferences.
Bettman thought it was, like, cool:
“This is as good as it gets as far as being able to communicate,” Bettman said. “When I was a little kid this was like science fiction stuff, and now this is simply terrific.”
When Bettman was a kid, a handheld device was a rock or a ball or a sack of marbles. Now 10 year olds have 3G smartphones. What will be their TelePresence?
Anyway, the NHL plans to add Montreal to the TelePresence mix so league meetings can be held virtually. Bettman is even hoping the 30 NHL teams get TelePresenced to each other and to the Mother Ship.
(TelePresence in Buffalo… That would be bigger than Bob Seger. His music changed Buffalo. Maybe they can review some goals, like the skate-in-the-crease ‘No Goal’ Bettman allowed in the 1999 Stanley Cup Playoffs.)
The NHL Foundation even hopes to install it in the hospital rooms of children so they can interact with their favorite players if the players can’t physically visit the hospital.
All this TelePresence love came amidst the renewal of a multiyear partnership between Cisco and the NHL to feature Cisco video technology in hockey and business operations, marquee events and on the NHL Website. Cisco is also promoting its Flip video camera through the NHL, and will feed NHL video content to Yahoo!
About the only place you won’t see Cisco with hockey is in those bubble games.
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