The San Jose Mercury News had a good article yesterday: Hockey Goes High-Tech at Shark Tank (annoying free registration required). Some good quotes:
Tim Hunter spent much of his NHL playing career pounding opponents. Now he's spending much of his coaching career pounding a keyboard. Hunter is the Sharks assistant coach who will be cradling a tablet PC as he paces behind the bench tonight at HP Pavilion. Used as a video monitor, that PC is the most visible sign yet that San Jose, fittingly, has become the NHL's most tech-savvy franchise.
The Sharks … are the only one with a tablet PC on the bench that receives the TV feed of ongoing action. First used in the final two games of the regular season as a warm-up for the playoffs, it enables coaches to stop action, control replays and organize play by common elements, such as goals against or penalty kills.
Sharks Coach Ron Wilson is apparently a real technology guy with a “Captain Computer reputation”. The story described how he designed his own database software to compile statistics and how he uses technology for both training and motivation.
Very cool stuff. This sounds more real than if was some sort of HP marketing pitch. (HP recently renamed the San Jose Arena to the HP Pavilion after their acuisition of Compaq.)