NHL tests yellow boards and Travis Zajac thinks they’re stupid

Since hockey fans unanimously love those CGI advertisements on the netting behind the goals – and we hope you can taste the bitter tang of sarcasm here – the NHL is experimenting with new ways to add CGI ads during television broadcasts. 

One new option, tested at the New York Islanders game at the New Jersey Devils on Thursday: Adding a yellow tint to the boards, in order to create a “green screen” effect.

Tom Gulitti of Fire & Ice had a look at them:

There was no telecast of tonight’s game, but a couple of times the ads showed up on the replays shown on the scoreboard’s video screen. (I saw one with a red McDonald’s ad that wrapped completely around the end boards). Otherwise, the CGI ads are not visible to those in the arena. (There are the regular ads on the board that you normally see, though.)

Here’s a wire image from the game with another look at the boards:

Essentially, it’s a way for teams to sell local advertising while the NHL sells national advertising that gets placed over the local ads for NBC games. In theory.

It was a preseason test for the NHL; Travis Zajac of the Devils gave them a failing grade, via Fire & Ice:

 “I don’t like that,” Zajac said. “Is it going to stay like that? I didn’t like it, hated it actually. I thought it was stupid. It doesn’t look right. You get used to it, but I still don’t like looking at it. That’s my opinion.”

The boards were back to white after the game.

Are you down with yellow tinted boards? They sort of take away from the driven snow aesthetic of the ice. Although with the amount of advertising the NHL is attempting to cram into their arenas, we could be looking at Euro league ice in a few years anyway.

But hey, yellow boards might work. When NHL players spill blood it’ll have a nice ketchup and mustard feel.