The final prototype electronic SuperPucks are due to start a rigorous testing program in Slovakia and Switzerland this month.

It has been a busy 12 months since the ground-breaking project was launched in association with Vegum Slovakia, the world's biggest manufacturer of ice hockey pucks and TAG Heuer Sports Timing.

The first prototypes had the transponder chip permanently embedded inside a standard game puck. The chip fitted neatly into the cavity and was back-filled using a special compound polyurethane filler developed for SuperPuck by Henkel in Germany. The puck worked very well and stood up well to a punishing test program, but unfortunately the cost of this process proved to be too expensive. The problem being that pucks are only used for one game in pro-hockey before being discarded whereas the expensive chip inside may last for three years.

A radical change was necessary and SuperPuck embarked on a Mk 2 version with Vegum to produce an all-new puck with a removable cap seal ... which would allow the transponder chip to be removed after a game and refitted into a new puck. This would drastically reduce the overhead costs to teams & rinks who would only require around 20 transponder chips per season plus their normal amount of game pucks.

The TAG Heuer Chronolec decoder box is similar to their Formula 1 & LeMans motorsports timing systems. The ice hockey version has four magnetic-field loops covering the goal-lines and blue-lines. When the SuperPuck passes over them a signal is sent to the rinkside decoder box within 1/1000 of a second and simultaneously to a referee's earpiece, stadium hooter or light system .. invaluable for instant and accurate refereeing decisions.

No more questions when a player is offside or disputes about whether the puck was over the goal-line or not.

The SuperPuck electronic detection system will be available exclusively from SuperPuck Limited for worldwide distribution.

For all enquiries: alena.bielikova@superpuck.com