AC Prof Helms Hockey Replay at Beijing 2022 Olympics

Posted on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022

Algonquin College Professor Matthew McCooeye lent his broadcasting expertise to the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games. This is McCooeye’s third Olympics, following Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018. He was one of only two hockey replay directors in men’s and women’s hockey production at Beijing 2022 with the Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS).

Producing all live coverage for the Olympic and Paralympic games, the OBS uses leading technology and production methods to deliver the live feed at the Olympics. As the Program Coordinator of Algonquin College’s Broadcasting – Television program, being part of the OBS production crew gives McCooeye an opportunity to work with equipment unavailable in Canada, and bring that knowledge back to learners at the College.

“It’s a different kind of storytelling and our job is to tell the story of the game and the story of the athletes,” he says. “We have a camera and a replay machine that shoots 300 frames per second and provides beautiful pictures and replays; it’s like art. For reference, a normal replay camera in Canada shoots 30 frames per second.”

The role of the hockey replay director is magnified by the scale of Olympic hockey production. For example, an NHL game typically has six-to-eight cameras covering the ice, whereas Olympic hockey has 41 cameras. The crew has nine replay operators who each watch between four and eight cameras. With only enough time for three replays, it’s McCooeye’s job to identify and relay the best options to the producer, who ultimately decides which ones go to air.

McCooeye’s position covered all hockey games in the Wukesong Sports Centre. This meant a demanding work schedule of 12+ hour days, followed by preparing for and teaching his Live Event Production class from Beijing. Despite the long hours, it’s worth it for the students to experience real-life examples of a large live event production.

“Our students make run sheets so I show them the one that we use here. They also make call sheets so I can show them the call sheet used at an event like this with a crew of 150 people,” he says. “I try to provide the perspective of how producing a big event is both similar and different to what they’re doing, and hopefully they watch the games and content in a different way after seeing the actual run sheet being used to produce that event.”

In happy coincidence, two of McCooeye’s former students were also in Beijing working on the hockey production crew – Sonia Navarrete and Josh Debruyn. While Navarrete was a replay operator at the National Indoor Stadium, Debruyn was the lead utility with McCooeye at the Wukesong Sports Centre. In fact, Debruyn was the first student he met on his first day teaching at the College.

“It motivates you as faculty when you see grads from our program excel,” says McCooeye. “It’s really something else to work on a production like this with a student you taught and who graduated from the program – that’s been really rewarding.”

Matt McCooeye (R) & Josh Debruyn (L) in Beijing


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