What’s next for the NHL and the Metaverse?

Los Angeles Kings president Luc Robitaille had just seen the future.

It was a Stanley Cup Playoff game in May, and the Kings were putting some dizzying imagery on their arena video screens, with 3D images of players.

“It was really cool, actually,” the Hockey Hall of Famer said. “The guys were going off the ice, changing. And we had our mascot dancing on top of them while that was going on.”

“You had to kind of do a double-take. It’s something different that no one’s ever seen before. But as an organization, we feel it’s important to try new things.”

In this case, the new thing was the Metaverse, a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social interaction. Or, more specifically, bringing the Kings into that new frontier by becoming the first NHL team to use volumetric technology to film its players.

The Kings partnered with Tetavi, an Israeli-based company, to create two videos that that showed the potential for immersive technology in the Metaverse.

Tetavi took its portable production studio and set it up on the Kings’ practice rink in El Segundo on a day in April. Los Angeles players, like Anže Kopitar, Phillip Danault, Adrian Kempe, Viktor Arvidsson, Trevor Moore and Alex Iafallo, skated around in full gear as eight cameras filmed their motions. The same process was used to film Bailey, the Kings’ lion mascot, banging a drum and dancing around.

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Take a look at how the Kings are innovating with immersive new technology on their arena video screens.

In the past, this type of venture would have had players heading to a remote studio for an all-day shoot. The Kings marveled at how the Tetavi process took four hours from setup to filming at their practice rink. Especially because the players were in the midst of an intense playoff race.

Using the footage and its machine-learning technology, Tetavi built out the models of the players and the mascot at their studios. The final product was shown during the Kings’ playoff series against the Edmonton Oilers.

“It was a pleasure working with the players and Bailey to bring this in-game activation to life, and we have ambitious plans to supercharge engagement for Kings fans around the world,” Tetavi CEO Gilad Talmon said. “This is a major step in our mission to democratize volumetric technology.”

The videos were shown on the arena’s video screens rather than in a VR headset. They were just a taste of what volumetric capture can produce. But it wasn’t hard to imagine a fan immersing themselves in the Metaverse as…