Ilves is a Finnish recreational club founded in 1931 with over 7000 members, offering diverse recreational activities such as ice hockey, football, floorball, futsal, and ringette.
As a hockey club, Ilves is one of the most successful teams in Finland. Their home arena is Nokia Arena, one of Europe’s most modern multi-purpose arenas, capable of seating over 12,700 spectators. Ilves ice hockey games enjoy the highest attendance in Finland.
Ilves Hockey Oy’s social media team won the Ice Hockey Achievement of the Year award in 2022, inspiring the development of their own media production, which expanded into radio production in 2023.
The decision was based on the fact that everything happens in the cloud. Their office space is limited, and the installation of large central units or separate studios is not possible.
Alternative choices would have increased the complexity and made the production of ice hockey broadcasts from multiple locations simultaneously more challenging. With a cloud-based solution, broadcasts can be produced anywhere and anytime, opening up new possibilities for versatile broadcasting in the future. All that is needed is an internet connection, and it works like a charm!
Ilves live broadcasts are only conducted on game days, offering comprehensive hockey coverage, including game commentary, pre-game studios, player interviews, and more.
From the commentary booth, they produce pre-game studios and provide commentary during the game. The commentary setup is equipped with lightweight tools such as a laptop, headset, and RodeCaster. The interviewer by the rinkside and the interviewer conducting interviews from the locker room use a tablet and a headset.
All interviews take place remotely: the commentator in the booth poses the questions, and the interviewee’s responses are transmitted directly to the broadcast via the tablet. This enables seamless interaction and delivers high-quality content to our viewers. “It’s amazing that we can conduct post-game interviews right from the heart of the team, inside the locker room, capturing authentic sounds and emotions to bring into the broadcast”, says Valtteri Makkonen, Executive Producer at Ilves.
The Ilves ice hockey team has had the opportunity to play games abroad in CHL, and live broadcasts were made from these matches. They were able to produce a credible radio broadcast without interruptions or other issues, which demonstrates how lightweight the system is. The type of internet connection required for using the system is available from almost anywhere.
“It’s amazing that we can conduct post-game interviews right from the heart of the team, inside the locker room, capturing authentic sounds and emotions to bring into the broadcast”
– Valtteri Makkonen, Executive Producer at Ilves.
The biggest advantage is the ability to produce broadcasts from anywhere, not tied to a specific location. The delay is negligible, enabling the simultaneous participation of multiple individuals in the broadcast. This provides the opportunity to fully leverage Ilves’ fantastic home arena Nokia Arena, as interviewers can be placed in various locations such as the lobby, along the rinkside, and in the commentary booth. This results in an extremely high-quality broadcast, sounding as if it has been produced with significant investment, even though, in practice, participants only use a computer or mobile device with headphones.
“We can rely on the fact that interviews conducted during the game will be automatically recorded in the system, eliminating the need for separate recording. They can be easily extracted at the end of the day, enabling effortless production of material from live interviews for future broadcasts”, Valtteri Makkonen says.
The system’s speed is essential for swift access to materials, enabling the Ilves media team to promptly download and share them on their website, ensuring all fans have fast access to the materials.
“The system is simple, and the training was excellent – now, after a few months of use, I feel like I know the system excellently”, Valtteri says.
Interviews with players and coaching are conducted using a recorder. The interviews are edited and added to RadioMan®.
A broadcast template with host-specific jingles is prepared and customized based on the host for that day.
RadioMan® is used to schedule the broadcast, and the commentaries begin when the game starts. After the commentary, it’s time for post-game discussions, including interviews with players and coaches from the locker room.
The complete broadcast is ready for download and editing within a few minutes. Interviews are edited out and promptly added to the website, taking about 10 minutes before they’re ready for listening. After this, the entire broadcast is uploaded to the website and is usually available for listening approximately 30 minutes after the broadcast ends.
Ilves+ is the ultimate hub for free audiovisual content. It hosts all the team’s press conferences, goal highlights, and match summaries. Additionally, the service offers exclusive interviews and live match commentary. “No one else in the world provides such a comprehensive service – while a few audiovisual hubs exist, none of them offer radio broadcasts and in-game commentary like we do”, says Valtteri.
