This is the third post in a series on creating player videos college coaches want to see from potential recruits.
#1 How to Create Player Videos for Recruiting
#2 What Are The 3 Types of Recruiting Videos Coaches Want to See? – Champs App
#4 How to Edit Video for Recruiting Highlight Reels
#5 Where to Post Your Recruiting Highlight Reels
Now that you decided you want to create videos for your player the first step is to get raw game footage you can use to create the three different types of highlight reels coaches want to see.
Live Streaming Services
In both the US and Canada, LiveBarn is the most popular hockey streaming service. What is great about LiveBarn is that you can easily download either 30 second clips or full games. While sometimes the quality isn’t great or the camera is sometimes not focused on the puck, in general it is one of the most consistent sources of footage that you can use.
The second most popular game streaming available is from HockeyTV. Depending on the event and/or rink, the service has a very good browsing capability to find specific games and navigating within games. The big drawback for HockeyTV is that you need to pay an extra fee to download specific games – which makes it expensive to use for editing full games. My trick is to just use my phone’s camera to record specific highlights from of the HockeyTV screen.
Additional Streaming Services
There are also other hockey streaming services available in specific regions or events. For example, in Minnesota there are rink-specific feeds that you can pay to watch games. And there is also the GameOn streaming service in Canada that is available for major events and specific rinks. Once again, the fees vary either by one-time access to events (e.g. tournament or showcase) or subscriptions.
Recoding Games Yourself (or by someone on your team)
At almost every rink, you will find at least one parent with either an iPad or video camera on a tripod recording or streaming a game. The quality is usually very good and as long as they camera person pays attention the entire game, there is usually some great footage.
In addition, I consistently see at least one parent along the glass takes out their phone every time their kid is on the ice and start the recording their shifts.
One more method is to use GoPro cameras. This is my personal favorite source of game footage as a supplement to LiveBarn. It is especially good for goalies. While you only need one camera and you can decide which end is more appropriate to record based on your player and period, I like to use two cameras at both ends of the rink behind the goalies. The only challenge with using GoPros is that it is a lot of work. Beyond shelling out ~$200 or more for a camera, memory card and necessary accessories to stick it to the glass, you also need to make sure you have enough power to last the entire game. This can be through charging the in-camera batteries or connecting an external battery pack. And remembering to charge the batteries and empty the memory cards before/after games is another chore. However, the payoff is that the quality of the video for offensive plays and goalie footage is about as good as it gets. I can’t tell you how many goalies (and their parents) have asked me to send them video of their end when they know that I recorded their game.
OTHER FOOTAGE SOURCES
Sometimes a game or a highlight is available from some third party that I have seen on social media or know about from our team chat.
Many games are live broadcast or posted to YouTube either by the opposing team or a tournament/showcase organizer (e.g. NAHA Winterhawks games and more). You may be able to find game footage just by doing a search on YouTube. If you have a premium YouTube subscription you can download videos with your account. There are also “free” websites to download YouTube videos, but since many of the sites are filled with suspicious ads and potential malware, I won’t link to any of them here. I would just suggest you use caution when using one of these services.
Twitch, Facebook Live, Livestream or Other Personal Live Broadcasting Services
Similar to YouTube, many parents live stream games using their personal social media accounts. I have used footage from Faceboook Live and SeasonCast . You may not be able to download the full game video, but you can use your phone to capture short highlights.
Social Media
Every once in a while I will find a short highlight I want to use on Twitter or Instagram. Usually someone else posted a great play from an angle or a shot that is better than what I have on my footage, so I find a way to capture or download it.
One more trick I use is a screen recording software (sometimes I use Screencast – but you can also just use Zoom to record your screen) to capture and download video from a 3rd party source that is not available for easy download.
I am sure I am missing some additional sources of footage and other methods of capturing game video, so please feel free to send us your methods and we can add them to this post.