ESPN, Disney Branded Television, and the NHL are teaming up for NHL Big City Greens Classic 2. The live, animated NHL game telecast featuring the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins will be shown on Saturday, March 9 at 3 p.m. ET.
In this special clip, Cricket and Gramma from Disney Channel's “Big City Greens” have a chat with the Penguins' Brad Marchand. It's funny.
Last year's Big City Greens Classic featured the Washington Capitals facing off against the New York Rangers, with a unique volumetric animation presentation.
This year's game will have real-time, virtually created animations of NHL players based on characters from the Disney Channel series. ESPN+, Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney+ will show the live, animated telecast, while the traditional telecast will be available on ABC and ESPN+.
The presentation will combine two tracking technologies — NHL EDGE positional data (NHL Puck and Player tracking) and Hawk-Eye Innovations optical tracking — to create more dynamic player and character movement for fans to better visualize detailed limb and stick movements. Additionally, characters from “Big City Greens” will coach the players, with Gramma coaching the Bruins, and her grandson Cricket coaching the Penguins. The intermissions will also feature characters competing against each other.
All the voice talent from “Big City Greens” will be part of the show, including co-creators and executive producers Chris Houghton (Cricket) and Shane Houghton (various characters), Marieve Herington (Tilly), Zeno Robinson (Remy) and Artemis Pebdani (Gramma).
Disney has previously done similar events, like when the “Toy Story” characters took over an NFL game (with Duke Kaboom performing during halftime) for Toy Story Funday Football. Other networks and studios have also joined in, such as this year’s “SpongeBob SquarePants”-led Super Bowl.
These specific games, including the Big City Greens Classic 2, are part of an effort by teams and networks to involve the entire family in watching live sports, using the latest in cutting-edge technology. Game on!
The Pittsburgh Penguins will play against the Boston Bruins on Saturday, March 9 at 3 p.m. ET.
