Since the genre's inception, science-fiction writers have imagined what the future might hold for Earth and beyond. While their stories are often fantastical, many of them anticipated technologies that actually exist today, such as television and artificial intelligence. However, countless more made predictions that were absolute whiffs. While many sci-fi authors envisioned the possibilities of nuclear power, Philip K. Dick's "The Land That Time Remembered" got specifically stuck on the idea of a society where humans washed their hands with "soap dispensers powered by the almighty atom," and where "torrents of soap spurted forth by means of the forces that birthed the universe." Still cherished today, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" brought us Jules Verne's dreams of electric-powered submarines, tasers, and other technologies that were unheard of in 1870.

The Dallas Cowboys had just won the Vince Lombardi Trophy, handing the Buffalo Bills their third straight loss in the Super Bowl. Bill Clinton was sworn into office as the 42nd president of the United States. And American music icon Prince became The Artist Formerly Known as Prince. It was also the last time a Canadian hockey team won the Stanley Cup. On Saturday night, the Edmonton Oilers hope to take the first step toward breaking that drought when they take on the Florida Panthers in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.

In a classic start-up setting -- in a former textile plant four miles from where the first hockey match was played a century and a half ago -- a group of high-tech computer engineers are changing Canada's most revered pastime. There -- in sterile cubicles amid lots of wood and windows, with a jelly-bean dispenser and the inevitable dog, all planted in a gentrifying Jewish section of Montreal where Mordecai Richler set his landmark 1970 novel "St. Urbain's Horseman" -- they examine the 4,000 motions they detect players make in the course of each 60-minute game. The result is millions of data points unavailable to fans in the stands, but indispensable for coaches and, ultimately, players. The work being done here is changing the world of sport.