July 6, 2009

The official game clock vs. TSN’s clock

Question

I was watching the Winnipeg vs. Edmonton game on Thursday night and the clock on the TSN broadcast appeared to keep running after the referee blew his whistle. Is the clock on the TSN broadcast the same as the official game clock?

Answer

The clock that TSN has on the bottom of the screen is not official. Sometimes the TSN clock doesn’t run at the start of a play or it runs after a play so that it can be corrected and match the official game clock.

The scoreboard clock in the stadium has the official time. The league also keeps time manually on a stop watch at field level as a backup in case there is a problem with the stadium clock.