Smooth rinkside streaming with an online hockey scoreboard

No matter where you are in the world or how big your team, live streaming your next ice hockey game is sure to gather a virtual audience. Beyond its popularity in places like the United States and Canada, competitive ice hockey is widely played across Europe and Asia. In this blog, we share our tips on how to balance shooting a fast-paced game, live streaming, and helping your viewers keep score.

A beginner’s guide to streaming hockey

Live streaming your next hockey game is a great way to help parents, relatives and friends feel involved and support their team from afar. Coaches and players also find live stream recordings useful to review gameplay, and breakdown strategy and training for the next time they’re on the ice. 

With the right set up and pre-game prep, shooting and streaming a hockey game can be a one-man job. However, we suggest you have at least one person to help you operate your online hockey scoreboard while you ensure the camera follows the puck. 

Here’s the equipment you’ll need:

• A decently-priced camera
• A tripod
• At least one microphone to capture ambient sound
• A laptop that can support a sound mixer, your streaming software (OBS Studio is a great free option) and your ice hockey scoreboard software

Everything should fit comfortably in a duffel or travel bag, so you can capture the action at any rink – home or away!

Here are a few tips for how to film your next hockey game:

• Invest in a good tripod so that you can smoothly turn and follow the puck as much as possible.
• Get as close to the center as possible, then try and find a high point to establish a clear sightline. 
• Place the microphone away from your crowd. Things can get pretty animated, and the acoustics can be very different inside the building from open-air sports. 
• If you want clear commentating, be sure to sit a good distance from the rink and the more enthusiastic fans. You can also limit commentary to before the game and during intermission. (However, Zambonis can get quite loud during ice resurfacing.) 
• Make sure you have a reliable connection to the wifi or to an ethernet connection. Mobile hotspots might not work as well in a building designed for maximum insulation.  
• Get long, reliable cables to connect to power sources and ethernet (if necessary), and secure them away from players and crowds. 

If you’re unable to connect reliably to the internet, you can always record the game on OBS Studio and post it on YouTube or your chosen platform later.

Using online hockey scoreboards and overlays in your stream

If you’re looking to use a hockey scoreboard online free of charge, look no further than uno overlays. Our professionally-designed overlays can be custom-edited to match team colors and logos. More importantly, they don’t require any downloads, so you can use them over and over again and edit in real-time. 

Help viewers from home keep up with every goal, penalty, and play with our online hockey scoreboard overlays. Both our Champion-themed Hockey Scorebug and our Standard-themed Hockey Scorebug come with a custom game clock, alert messages for penalties and substitutions, and tools to display overtime and shootouts.

Use our overlays for more than just ice hockey

Each uno custom scoreboard can be adapted and repurposed for field and roller hockey. Use our real-time, online interface to adjust the duration of your game clock and penalty time based on the specific rules of play. Our scorebugs can also be used for sports similar to hockey, like ringette, pond hockey, spongee, broomball and more. (We also have a scoreboard designed specifically for roller hockey.)

Add production quality by introducing star players

Get people excited before the game with additional commentary on the starting team players. Use our Fresh-themed Ice Hockey Formation overlay to discuss strategy, positions, and even share player history – with helpful visual cues. 

Start live streaming your next hockey game

With these tips and our online hockey scoreboard overlay, you’re ready to start live streaming your next hockey game right by the rink. And, if you’re looking for more overlays to polish your livestream, including lower third tickers, leaderboards, and more, browse our overlay library today.