Off the ice, the National Hockey League is a big business focused on many areas including merchandising. A new collaboration between the NHL’s St. Louis Blues and a Canadian immersive technology company, with a School of Engineering connection, is bringing the team its first metaverse shopping experience.

The Blues have teamed up with MantisXR to create an immersive reality retail experience. The company’s technology and processes were developed by Dr. Vincent Loi, who graduated from the School of Engineering in 2021. Loi worked alongside his PhD supervisor (Dr. Kenneth Chau) to develop immersive technologies as a partial detour from his core research.

In addition to being the lead designer of MantisXR, Vincent is now a senior research scientist at Huawei Technologies in Canada.  Dr. Kenneth Chau is the technology advisor for MantisXR.