How Metal Ligaen Uses Spiideo for Ice Hockey Officiating

Beyond the coach, captain, and the keeper — referees play a key role role in sport. Tasked with upholding the integrity of an event, one bad call can have season-defining consequences.

With so little margin of error, the world of sports has turned to video to assist referees in the stadium and decision-makers throughout a league.

By combining powerful analysis tools like Spiideo Perform and instant replay tools such as Spiideo REPLAY Pro, leagues like Metal Ligaen — Denmark’s highest-level ice hockey competition — have developed a top-tier officiating process. Using the power of Spiideo, officials can minimize mistakes, encourage fair play, and keep players safe.

With the fast pace of play, it’s easy to miss important moments. To ensure its officials always have a clear view to make calls, Metal Ligaen relies on a fleet of Spiideo’s AI-powered cameras, with full panoramic views as well as AI trained to follow a variety of sports, just like a professional camera operator.

Connected to the cloud, the footage is automatically uploaded to Spiideo’s analysis and instant replay platforms and accessible across any device. If an incident is deemed worthy of review, the official in charge can head to the scorekeeper’s bench and review play via an iPad, eliminating uncertainty from the game.

But with a single view rarely telling the full story, Metal Ligaen doesn’t just rely on one camera to uphold the integrity of play. Rather, multiple cameras across the arena, above the goal lines, blue lines, center line, behind the goals, and above each rink, ensure incidents are captured from every angle and the correct decision is reached every time.

Metal Ligaen isn’t only using video to support referees while they’re on the ice. With the ability to follow along in real-time through Spiideo Perform, the organization often sends officiating coaches to sit in the stands and live tag events as they play out. This means that every foul, penalty, and goal is easily accessible for instant review, unlocking additional potential to raise refereeing standards even further.

Utilizing Spiideo’s powerful presentation tools, clips can be enhanced with useful telestration overlays and markings, transforming raw footage into game-changing visual feedback. Shared with officials after the final whistle, this footage — and the ability to scrub, zoom, and change angles with the click of a button — facilitates in-depth discussion that helps officials to raise their game.

For every game they oversee, referees are also encouraged to share a summary and supporting clips with their colleagues through a closed forum. Likewise, Spiideo footage is used during officiating seminars, with referees tasked with finding and presenting insightful clips to the group. These various uses have not only helped officials to hone their skills but also providing constant constructive feedback that raises standards and encourages consistency throughout the competition.

A referee’s job isn’t just to protect the integrity of a competition. It’s also to protect the safety of those taking part.

In fact, the MVP of Metal Ligaen’s high-level video officiating process is the ‘Department of Player Safety’ (DOPS) — A disciplinary panel tasked with reviewing rule breaks that impose a risk to other competitors. Powered by Spiideo, potentially dangerous incidents are clipped, exported in 4K quality, and shared with the DOPS, as well as the player and team involved. Based on the evidence, the department then decides whether to issue a player suspension.

For smaller organizations, creating such a thorough process would be unachievable without Spiideo’s support. Recording, processing, clipping, and sharing footage is a time-consuming job, but with Spiideo, it’s a matter of watching the game, highlighting the important moments, and selecting who to share it with. AI takes the lead on the rest. The workflow is now turbocharged.

Metal Ligaen’s officials do a fantastic job of keeping play in check. On average, less than one on-field review is initiated per game. However, when relying solely on the human eye, incidents will be missed — and it only takes one mistake to alter the league.