Batman, Wonder Woman and Bugs Bunny are going to lace up and hit the ice, as Warner Bros. Discovery, TNT Sports and the NHL are teaming up for their first ever live animated simulcast of a pro hockey game.
The special game (a partnership between TNT Sports, the NHL, and Warner Bros. Games), dubbed MultiVersus NHL Face-Off, will run on TruTV and stream on the B/R Sports add-on for Max April 14 at 3:30 p.m., and will see the Colorado Avalanche take on the Las Vegas Golden Knights.
The fully animated presentation will see a bevy of Warner Bros. and DC Comics characters make up the teams, including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman (all from DC), Velma and Shaggy (from Scooby Doo), Steven Universe and Finn the Human (from Adventure Time), and of course Bugs Bunny. The Tasmanian Devil will suit up as referee.
The animated characters will play alongside cartoon avatars of some of the top players from the Avalanche and Golden Knights, in virtual environments plucked from the MultiVersus game developed by WBD’s game studio, including the Space Jam Court, Sky Arena and the Adventure Time Tree Fort. The MultiVersus game will be released May 28, and sees iconic WB characters in a fighting game (similar to Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. franchise).
TNT will host a “draft” for the animated teams during the NFL postgame show on April 7.
Steve Mears will call the special simulcast of the game, with color commentary from Colby Armstrong. The regular game, without the cartoon characters, will run on TNT and Max.
The MultiVersus NHL Face-Off is the latest example of a league partnering with a media partner to develop a new way to televise their games. The NHL has already explored animated editions of its games with Disney for the NHL Big City Greens Classic, which ran on Disney Channel and featured characters from Big City Greens. And last year the NFL and Disney partnered on a Toy Story-fied edition of an NFL game that streamed on Disney+.
The NFL and Paramount have previously partnered on special Nickelodeon editions of select games, featuring animated characters, slime, and special commentary.
Still, the MultiVersus NHL game is a first step in that arena for TNT Sports, which is rebranding TruTV as a sports channel, with the stated goal of adding more simulcasts of its NHL, MLB and NBA games.
And it comes ahead of TNT’s coverage of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs, which begin April 20.
You can watch a video of what the animated simulcast will look like, below.
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