Sensor to track hockey By Patricia Resende

Beanpot fans this and www.WBZ.com Web year can find out how sites where fans can fast a player is access real-time data. skating and how hard Trakus has signed a deal a player is hit in real- with the NHL to roll out time, during the 50th the application anniversary Beanpot leaguewide and plans to Tournament. complete the rollout over In collaboration the next two years. with College, Trakus’ 30 employees , will develop, manufac- Harvard and North- ture and operate the eastern University, technology for the NHL. Trakus Inc. in “Our first television Medford will use debut of the system was The amount of time a player spends in certain zones is shown in the upper sensor technology to right box. These statistics can be relayed to fans watching the game. in Denver (at the NHL’s capture Beanpot All-Star game),” players’ stats and make them available Beanpot is that with some of the McCarthy said “We’ve been testing to fans. interactive applications that our with the NHL for the past few years,” The annual Beanbot event will be system has, it enables you to watch a he said. played Mondays, Feb. 4 and 11, at the full, live digital reconstruction of the In addition to working with the Fleet Center. The above schools, as game over an Internet connection,” NHL, Trakus is developing its always, are featured. McCarthy said. application for other sports, including Trakus Inc., formed by MIT Web sites, sports leagues and soccer and football. graduate Eric Spitz in 1997, has networks pay licensing fees for Trakus is in talks with the NFL and developed the Digital Sport Informa- Trakus’ technology. However, the other sports leagues. It expects the tion application, which measures how coverage of this year’s Beanpot system to be ready for commercial hard players are hit and how fast they Tournament is a part of an initiative development during the 2002 NFL are skating and transmits that data to between NESN and Trakus to season. Soccer is planned following wireless devices, the Internet and the promote the uses of DSI, so partici- the introduction into the football Sports Network. pating universities will not pay market. The data is captured though a radio licensing fees to Trakus. Since the company was founded it tag, or “player patch,” placed on a “For this event, we’ve offered our has raised $17 million in funding. player’s helmet. The data is then sent Web page summaries and Steve Solomon, president of the through a radio transmission to a GameViewer application to the sports division of Univision, who also database that stores and processes the participant universities as promotional served as the COO of the NHL after data. items,” he said. 21 years with ABC, serves as chair- “It’s one event where we can The traditional Boston Beanpot is man of the board of Trakus. showcase our content over various not the first time that Trakus has had To allow fans to get real-time media,” said Bob McCarthy, Trakus’ its shot on the ice. information on past plays, Trakus has chief technology officer. For the past two hockey seasons teamed up with InterSystems, a Bay In addition, the Beanpot tourna- Trakus, in a partnership with the State company with headquarters in ment will also introduce the Hit National Hockey League, has used its Cambridge, to store and archive the Gauge, an index of player checking Digital Sports Information application information. intensity and the GameViewer, a real- to give Bruins fans a look at players’ time, animated re-creation of the speed, endurance, tendencies and game that will be featured on power. www.nesn.com and each of the Trakus started testing the applica- universities’ Web sites: www.bc.edu, tion with the Bruins in the second half www.bu.edu, www.harvard.edu and of the Bruins’ 2001 season. www.neu.edu. There is an entire section dedicated to “One thing that is unique with the Trakus on the www.bostonbruins.com