from David Shoalts of the Globe And Mail,

The boss thought your agent was just the person to take a look and offer an opinion. It was no coincidence, I am sure, that your agent is an old coot and a traditionalist who still giggles when he thinks of the Fox network’s old glowing blue puck and red swoosh.

She was right, of course. I didn’t like any of these great breakthroughs in technology. They were all either underwhelming (the new puck-tracker thingy) or simply clutter (all those tags that told you how fast a shot was, how fast someone was skating or how long he was on the ice)....

First, I must congratulate Sportsnet for its restraint in the use of them. The network’s executives, no doubt acutely aware that Canadians still mock the Fox puck, 20 years after its brief lifespan expired, kept the intrusion of these things (don’t ask me their official name) to a minimum.

I did not watch every second of the broadcast – it was the freakin' all-star game – but I did not see Sportsnet use the puck-tracking once on Hockey Night In Canada. For that, I had to turn to NBC, which cluttered up the screen regularly with all of the special effects.

Then again, seeing the puck has been an obsession of U.S. TV network executives for decades. The Fox puck was their version of the Holy Grail. They are still on the case in 2019, somehow having missed the development of high-definition television, which made it possible for even U.S. viewers who do not live in a traditional NHL market to see the puck.

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