After a successful season shooting and broadcasting the Gold Coast Blue Tongues home games, the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) has agreed to having Slapshot provide live streamed internet coverage of the 2008 Goodall Cup Finals in Newcastle, NSW on the 30-31 of August. With local knowledge and appreciation for this semi-professional sport starting to grow locally, Slapshot and its crew are taking a grassroots approach to help bolster its popularity by volunteering its time to cover the event and make it available to the global audience.
The AIHL Goodall Cup Finals weekend is the culmination of a tightly contested regular season whereby 4 of the 8 highly skilled teams have managed to fight their way to the top of the standings. Teams consist mostly of Australian players, with each team allowed to have 6 "import" players, which consist of A-level European and North American players plus the occasional NHLer. The top 4 finishers this year are the Penrith Bears (who also clinched the VIP Cup for top team), Melbourne Ice, West Sydney Ice Dogs and the Newcastle North Stars. Three of the four teams this year also appeared in 2007's Finals weekend, the first year that Slapshot partners attended and recorded the event for DVD.
Tickets for the live-to-internet broadcasts of the 3 games (2 x semi-final and one Grand Final game) are available on the slapshot.com.au website. Game passes can be purchased individually for AUD $11.95 or the 3-game VIP PUCKHEAD PASS can be had for $23.95. Prior to 28 August 2008, pre-sales single-game tickets will be 25% off and PUCKHEAD passes are discounted by 20%.
During the 2008 regular season, Slapshot amassed an excellent crew which allowed us to provide high-level ice hockey coverage in a way that has never been done in Australia before. With a 4-camera system, vision-switched LIVE to the internet via our mobile TV studio, we were able to bring together a professional mix of live play-by-play and colour commentary, dynamic on-the-fly graphics, instant replays and more. The resulting package was streamed live to the internet and recorded to disk for delayed broadcast to Brisbane's community Channel 31 (now QCTV), which is watched by nearly 40,000 viewers weekly.
Slapshot Entertainment brings not only this technical set-up to Newcastle for the Grand Final weekend, but also a background history and appreciation for ice hockey, the quality and feeling from which can be seen and felt in our broadcasts. It's this passion that prompted our willingness to be involved at this grassroots-level of ice hockey's growth in Australia. With enough enthusiastic support for this sport and the AIHL, we hope that existing and new fans alike will help it flourish, and Slapshot would like to be a big part of its growing success.
Mike Crowhurst
Slapshot Entertainment
www.slapshot.com.au
AIHL Ice Hockey on 31: ph 0405-141-445
mike@slapshot.com.au
