Video stored on hard drives is a key training tool for the Wild, helping players and coaches scout opponents and analyze the team's play (Photo courtesy: Minnesota Wild).

When the puck drops at a Minnesota Wild National Hockey League game, you won't find Matt Shaw pacing behind the players' bench or reminding his players of the game plan. Shaw is in the Wild's video office, watching the game on his Dell laptop while capturing the action with hard drives from Seagate.

"When you're by the bench, it's loud and emotions are high," said Shaw, the team's video coach. "Back here, I don't even know the stadium is filled with 18,000 fans. All the emotion is gone and the game is very black and white."

Between periods, the team's coaches come to Shaw's office, where they can immediately use the video footage stored on Seagate drives to talk about adjustments the team may need to make.

"Occasionally, we'll bring players back to help us make a point," said Shaw, whose 15-year coaching career includes positions at Colorado College and with the Wild's minor-league affiliate, the Houston Aeros, before he joined the team last summer.

As with most professional sports teams, the Wild use video as a tool to pre-scout their opponents and break down their own performance to zone in on areas for improvement. With 82 regular season games, at about 20 GB of digital video footage per game, the demand for ample storage capacity is obvious.

In Sync
Shaw relies on external storage solutions from Seagate®, including a 750-GB Maxtor® OneTouch® 4 Plus drive and a 250-GB Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini drive, to archive and back up game footage for future reference. Both drives deliver fast performance and instant access to data, along with the ability to automatically sync files between computers.

Shaw can store more than half a regular season's worth of games on these drives and, using special video-editing software from XOS Technologies, he can quickly call up specific clips.

"I have about five minutes to make an impression with players before their attention leaves me," Shaw, 42, explained. "With the storage capacity provided by my Seagate drives, I can find exactly what I want to show them in a matter of a few clicks."

That footage might be checks or goals against a certain team. It might be the players’ shots on net or a certain player’s hits.

"The ability to have so much video accessible allows me prove a point to a player or show our coaching staff what other teams are doing so we can prepare for our next opponent," Shaw said.

Shaw believes video is an invaluable learning tool for the team.

"You can show them on the ice, you can verbalize and you can draw it on a board, but when you can see it, slow it down, stop it and play it back, the players start to understand what the coaching staff is asking them to do," he said. "We're eliminating all the gray area. Because we have the storage capacity to access a large volume of games, players can't say that was just one shift or it was a bad game for them."

What's more, players often come to Shaw asking to review video to help them improve their games.

"Lots of guys like to see specific footage," he said. "In the future, we may even set up a computer station in the players' lounge area, where they can access certain games."

Road-Rugged Storage
Shaw particularly appreciates the compact size and portability of the Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini drive. The lightweight drive features a shock-resistant design for extra durability on the road, and it comes with two levels of encrypted security to protect its contents

Matt Shaw can store more than a half a season's worth of the Wild's games on external drives from Seagate.

"Being so small, it's very convenient," he said. "Where I find (the drive) especially useful is on our flights. We're fortunate that our charter service lets us use computers, but there’s only one A/C plug in our coaching area up front. So if I want to plug in the computer, I can’t also plug in an external hard drive that needs a power outlet. The Mini allows me to access video on the plane that I otherwise wouldn’t be able to."

Seagate's Jon Van Bronkhorst said the Minnesota Wild is another "excellent example" of how the company's hard drives give top professional and collegiate teams an extra edge. Baseball's Colorado Rockies and the University of California at Berkeley's Golden Bears football team also use a variety of Seagate external storage solutions in their video editing centers.

"By leveraging the Maxtor OneTouch products as Matt has with the Wild, all his video files are safe and secure at all times," said Van Bronkhorst, executive director of product marketing for the Seagate consumer solutions division. "And he has the additional benefit of being able to take them wherever he likes, thanks to the portability and large capacity of the OneTouch 4 Mini product."