Minnesota Wild

Entertainment

ST. PAUL, MN - In addition to the fast and furious action of the Minnesota Wild NHL hockey team, guests in the 74 executive suites at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul are now able to experience a first in interactive multimedia, high definition video, and personalized fan experience.

The Wild wanted an end-to-end, scalable platform for delivering interactive HDTV and entertainment content to some of its best customers. Nanonation went to work and created the first interactive, customizable skybox system.

The system, consisting of a networked computer, widescreen display, and customized software, provides fans with the ability to view and interact with high definition video and images, while browsing a library of exclusive content, live statistics, scores, and news over the Internet.

Guests are greeted with high impact images and are given a variety of options including viewing video highlights from previous games, downloading live statistics, or viewing upcoming events. In addition, each skybox is personalized to include corporate branding, personalized messages, and favorite Internet links.

Chris Monicatti, Director of Technology Services for the Wild brought the team of people together to develop the system. "Technologically it's quite remarkable. It's the first system to offer a high definition multimedia experience that combines interactivity with the Internet, locally stored content, and streamed video."

The centerpiece of the experience is the display and it's customized interface. Each suite is equipped with a widescreen format Apple 23" Cinema High Definition (HD) liquid crystal display that supports an astonishing 1920-by-1200-pixel resolution or over 2.3 million digital pixels. An Apple PowerBook in each suite drives the system, while the backend content is managed and delivered with a dynamic media database running on an Apple Xserve server, while NHL partner HDNet provides the high definition video content.

Brian Jore, Vice President of Information Technology for the Wild, is looking forward to seeing it grow as the season progresses. "The system provides us with a platform to offer value added services to our customers. It offers us a showcase for our brands and the events at the Xcel center, and most importantly it offers us a way to enhance the experience a fan has with us."