The best systems look simple, and are easy to use. Which means they're dead complicated, and really hard to build! What came to mind years and years and years ago (I've been working with this stuff since early '70s) had to do with mapping out movement and arc of influence for squad movement in infantry. A lot like chess: how you move now depends on what's influencing your next move ... anticipation. And in a squad different weapons have different abilities, so they have different responsibilities. You see how that applies to sports.

What I imagined, but couldn't do because I had experience only in virtual reality programming and not manipulation of actual video, was a system that would let us take game video and move the elements around. I mean pluck a player out and shift him over, to see how a different sequence would have played out differently. On top of that would be the sort of arc that's typical in mil-simulation, a cone of a certain width extending a certain distance, depending on the details of individual's situation.

Well in his last segment Don Cherry had exactly that system. He even joked about how he wished he had it years ago.

You see the actual game video, 2 D backing in towards the goal while winger and center move in ... with arcs showing how the puck handler could shoot or pass, and which area each D could sweep or block. A very nice way to markup the video.
But better: He could actually stop the video and move the players on the screen ... as though manipulating an animation. In this case he was showing how Boston's D was collapsing further than was good.

It's gotta be brand new else we'd have seen it before. I'm sure others will be using it soon ... easy and simple huh huh

cheers

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