Hear from some of the NHL and AHL’s foremost teams on the impact of Hudl, Hudl Sportscode, Hudl Replay and Studio

You can never underestimate the power of video.

Let’s look back. Game 6. First round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in Florida– where the eighth seed Florida Panthers were fighting to stay alive and force a game 7 against a historic Boston Bruins team. A third period Jake DeBrusk goal is challenged by Head Coach Paul Maurice, who got word from Assistant Coaches John Congemi and Myles Fee– who both manage their video analysis workflows in-game and post-game, that there was a hand pass in the buildup to the goal and that it shouldn’t stand. The challenge was successful and the Panthers went on to win a pivotal game on their run towards the Stanley Cup Finals last year. 

“That was John Congemi,” head coach Paul Maurice said in the post-game press conference. “We got the call that it was a handpass and it’s tight, right? He caught that. That’s the game, right? Zac Dalpe gets a goal, Luosty gets a huge goal. Those are some names that don’t get talked about much — John Congemi, Myles Fee back in the video room — but what an impact they make. I did not have that on the bench.” 

As the NHL has expanded its use of video throughout the last decade, including its use on the bench over the last few seasons, teams across the league have looked to Hudl to help supplement their in-game and post-game analysis. At our recent Elite User Conference in Santa Monica, we asked a couple of the NHL and AHL’s premier video coaches about their use of Hudl’s Pro Suite at the highest levels of the sport. Here’s what they had to say about its impact.

Myles Fee on the Power of Hudl Replay for the Florida Panthers

“I show up, plug in, make sure the Wi-Fi connection is on. And the coaches use it to talk to other coaches and confirm players what they saw, and then the players will use it for their ownership. What happened in the previous play?

I got my gray hair using other programs. Hudl allows me to breathe and relax during the game. I don't think I've had any failures to speak of that have affected my day. Yeah, there's always going to be a little issue here and there, I must have called the Hudl three times all year. 

No drop in game time, no drop in my day-to-day practices, and it just allows me to do my job efficiently.”

Emily Engel-Natzke on their Goalies’ Use of Hudl Studio and Using Hudl to Share Crucial Video with Their Players

“Our goalie coach really loves Studio. For him, he gets really into it– different colors, text boxes. He does a goalie loop for every single game, so he was actually really excited to get his hands on it. And for him, it's something he uses, I think almost on a game by game basis. So it's really kind of helped him hone in on specifics with goalies, which is so intricate on its own

It may not be an everyday in and out sort of thing for most people to use, but I find it kind of just adds a little more pizzazz or a little something different than what guys are used to seeing. And we're kind of hoping to get to the point where our coaches feel comfortable, where they can use it for pre scouts, maybe not on a daily basis, but here and there, just like I said, kind of switch things up."

“Hudl for our players is really big. They can watch shifts on the plane in between games, so it's really accessible for them. And I think just as a coaching staff, we like to utilize everything that Sportscode and Hudl has to offer, whether it's the drawing tools, different playlists sharing everything between each other. So we like to kind of dabble in a little bit of everything.”

Alex Matheson of the Manitoba Moose on their team’s Structure and Use of Hudl Sportscode

“For the American League level, we're definitely not on the scale of an NHL team. So for what we need and day to day, it works really well for us.

We have our two assistant coaches that do, you know, special teams, one to do power play, one will do PK, and then our head coach kind of just overlooks everything. He'll help with some of the special teams and and and I'm kind of mainly helping the head coach with really anything he wants from, you know, five on five stuff, even strength and pulling certain system clips or pulling player shifts that he wants to watch.

All the different coaches have, you know, their certain clips that they want, and it's easy for them to set everything up and and then easy to, you know, move over anything to different computers, everything like that. So it’s just a huge timesaver on the video coaches side, and then a good kind of customization for the other assistant coaches as well.

If you're looking to switch from, you know, a software you've used for a long time, it's really not that difficult to switch over and pretty easy to learn before the season.”

Ian Beckenstein of the Abbotsford Canucks on his Favorite Features in Hudl Sportscode.

“The strength Hudl and Sportscode provide is that everything is super customizable and there's more than one way to do something. My favorite customizable feature is that I can manipulate my code buttons to do more than one thing. So, for example, my five on five buttons can be one shade of green, and then I can use the same five on five buttons to change into a different shade of green. And what this does is it allows us to view our five on five events in one order and then our power play buttons in one order. So now we're more efficient in between periods going to the getting the information that we want to see quickly.

I like that we can capture multiple angles at once and it's a seamless transition, just a touch on the keyboard going from one angle to the next.”

Aron Augustitus of the Columbus Blue Jackets on the Support He Gets from Hudl’s Customer Success Team

“Coming from the program we used to work with, it's a lot more up to date with the world and the computers that we're using. So everything's just streamlined a lot better. And it looks a lot better than the program and I like the interface of it. It is awesome, easy to find things on. So that's a big thing for us.

It just seems like it's the way of the future. Like it seems like no one's really switching away from Hudl, they’re switching to Hudl. And I think that's just a testament to the product itself and the people like Evan and Mike, Brenna and Chuck who are, you know, available 24/7 to us pretty much. And I don't know if I've ever seen the text of it and not got a response in the first 5 minutes.

So it's been awesome. And it's one of those things where you actually feel like you're valued and heard as opposed to just like another number for the company. So I do think it's a big, big testament to the product that people are switching from others to Hudl as opposed to away from Hudl to the other product.

Just coming from what we used to come from and like creating playlists and making meetings, it was such a pain in the program we were using. But now the way it works in disorder order, being able to do that so easily, it's just streamlined everything."

We're excited to bring powerful video analysis tools to our hockey customers.