“CANADIENS GOAL!! Scored by number 17… JAKE MORRISON!!” That sentence, in a dramatic arena-quality voice, playing through your rink speakers the moment the scorekeeper taps the goal button—that's what HockeySync's new AI Arena Announcer does. Starting today, every goal and every penalty can trigger a real, spoken announcement powered by ElevenLabs AI voice technology.
Most community and recreational arenas don't have a dedicated PA operator sitting in a booth calling every play. Goals get recorded on paper. Penalties are read aloud by whoever happens to be near a microphone, or they aren't announced at all. The arena experience that players and fans get at the professional level—the booming voice, the goal call, the charged atmosphere—has always been out of reach for local leagues. Until now.
How It Works
When the AI Announcer is enabled for your association, a new button appears in the live scoring interface. Scorekeepers can trigger announcements for any goal or penalty in the game, either automatically when an event is logged or manually from the Announcements panel.
HockeySync builds the announcement script automatically from the game data: the team name, the scorer's name and number, the assistants, the type of goal (power play, short-handed, empty net), and the time of the goal in the period. For penalties, the script includes the player's name and number, the infraction, the duration, and the time of the penalty. The text is sent to ElevenLabs, which generates a high-quality MP3 in under two seconds, and the audio plays immediately through whatever speaker or sound system the scorekeeper's device is connected to.
No sound board. No PA operator. No manual scripts to type. The scorekeeper records the goal, and the arena hears it.
What an Announcement Sounds Like
The scripts are written for maximum impact—names in all caps, double exclamation points on the goal call, deliberate pacing between the scorer and the assists. A typical goal announcement sounds like this:
“CANADIENS GOAL!! Scored by number 17… JAKE MORRISON!! Assisted by number 9, Roy… and number 4, Leblanc! Time of the goal… 2 minutes, 34 seconds… of the first period.”
A penalty call is equally direct:
“LIONS PENALTY. Number 8… TYLER WALSH. 2 minutes for hooking! Time of the penalty… 7 minutes, 51 seconds… of the first period.”
The voice settings are tuned for expressiveness: low stability for natural variation between calls, high style for the dramatic delivery you'd expect from a professional announcer. Every call sounds different, the same way a real human announcer would never read the same script twice in exactly the same way.
The Announcements Panel
The Announcements panel in the scoring interface shows every goal and penalty in the game, organized by period. Each event has a trigger button that lets the scorekeeper re-announce any moment from the game—useful if an announcement was missed, if the audio cut out, or if the crowd asks to hear a big goal again.
While an announcement is playing, the button shows a loading state and all other trigger buttons are disabled to prevent overlapping audio. Once the announcement finishes, the panel is ready for the next call.
Power play goals, short-handed goals, and empty-net goals each get their own announcement variant. The system detects the goal type automatically from the scoring data—the scorekeeper doesn't need to select anything extra.
Powered by ElevenLabs
The voice quality behind this feature comes from ElevenLabs, one of the leading AI voice synthesis platforms available today. The model used is eleven_turbo_v2_5, optimized for low latency and high expressiveness. Response times are fast enough to keep pace with live scoring—from the moment a goal is entered to the moment the announcement plays through the speakers, the delay is typically under two seconds.
Association administrators can configure the feature with their own ElevenLabs voice ID, which means you can choose from hundreds of available voices or even clone a custom voice to match your arena's existing announcer.
Who Can Use It
The AI Announcer is available to associations on HockeySync. An association administrator enables the feature from the association settings panel, and it becomes available immediately for all leagues and games within that association.
The scorekeeper's device handles audio output—any device connected to the arena PA system, a Bluetooth speaker, or a standard 3.5mm aux cable works. There is no additional hardware required beyond what most scorekeepers already use.
The Atmosphere Your Players Deserve
Every player who steps on the ice deserves to have their name called. Whether it's a championship final or a Tuesday night recreational game, the moment a player scores should feel like something. The AI Announcer gives every league that experience, at every level, without the cost or logistics of a staffed PA booth.
If you're already running your league on HockeySync, contact your association administrator to enable the feature. If you're not on HockeySync yet, sign up free and see what modern league management feels like.