January 20, 1996: Fox Sports Introduces the Glow Puck

January 20, 1996: Fox Sports introduces the Glow Puck for its hockey broadcasts. It was designed to make the puck easier to see on TV.

For whatever reason, unlike the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), U.S. networks have had difficulty showing hockey on TV. NBC, CBS and ABC had all tried, with, at best, mixed results. Part of the problem is that, despite being black on a white ice surface, the puck, an object smaller than a baseball, was too hard to follow, with the players passing it around and shooting it too fast for the human eye to follow.

The system, officially called FoxTrax but nicknamed the Glow Puck, used modified hockey pucks containing shock sensors and infrared emitters, which were then read by sensors and computer systems to generate on-screen graphics, such as a blue or red "glow" around the puck, and other enhancements such as "trails" to indicate the hardness and speed of shots. The glow also allowed viewers to follow the puck near the bottom of the rink, where the traditional center ice camera was unable to see it due to the sideboards obstructing the puck's location.

It was introduced at the NHL All-Star Game in Boston, at the brand-new FleetCenter, the arena now named the TD Garden. The Boston Bruins had moved there the preceding October, after 67 seasons at the old Boston Garden.

The Glow Puck ended up backfiring: When Bruins hometown hero Ray Bourque scored the winning goal with 37 seconds left in regulation, giving the Eastern Conference a 5-4 win, the red streak didn't kick in, and the puck was every bit as hard to see as it always was.

Purists hated it, and people who had never been to a hockey game live saw that it was just a TV effect, and that, in person, there was no glow. When Fox's contract with the NHL ran out in 1998, and ABC/ESPN got the next contract, they didn't use the Glow Puck. Nor has NBC on its subsequent contracts.

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January 20, 1996 was a Saturday. This being the NHL's All-Star Break, there were no regular-season games. Baseball was out of season. The NFL was between its Conference Championships and Super Bowl XXX, which the Dallas Cowboys won over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

There were 7 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Vancouver Grizzlies, 84-80 at General Motors Place (now the Rogers Arena) in Vancouver.

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 103-97 in overtime at the Continental Airlines Area at the Meadowlands.

* The Golden State Warriors beat the Charlotte Hornets, 110-102 at the Charlotte Coliseum.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Miami Heat, 98-78 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The Sacramento Kings beat the Denver Nuggets, 115-110 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. Despite being on the losing side, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf led all scorers on the day with 36 points.

* The Utah Jazz beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 106-82 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

* And the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 93-82 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

And in English soccer, Arsenal lost to Everton, the blue team in Liverpool, 2-1 at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.