Olympic Hockey - ESPN Provider Research

Date: 2026-02-04 Status: FEASIBLE - Ready for implementation Related Issues: #88, #122 Parent Epic: teamarrv2-ia2

Summary

ESPN has full API support for 2026 Winter Olympics (Milano Cortina) ice hockey. Implementation is straightforward - uses same endpoint pattern as other hockey leagues.

API Findings

Endpoints Confirmed Working

# Men's Ice Hockey
https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/hockey/olympics-mens-ice-hockey/scoreboard
League ID: 20146

# Women's Ice Hockey
https://site.api.espn.com/apis/site/v2/sports/hockey/olympics-womens-ice-hockey/scoreboard
League ID: 20147

2026 Winter Olympics Data

Men’s Hockey:

• Events: 30 games
• Teams: 13 countries (CAN, USA, FIN, SWE, CZE, GER, SUI, SVK, FRA, LAT, DEN, ITA + TBD)
• Date Range: Feb 11 - Feb 22, 2026
• Venues: Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena

Women’s Hockey:

• Events: 28 games
• Teams: 11 countries (CAN, USA, FIN, SWE, CZE, GER, SUI, FRA, JPN, ITA + TBD)
• Date Range: Feb 5 - Feb 20, 2026

Team ID Structure

Teams use country abbreviations consistently:

• USA (id: 79), Canada (id: 16), Finland (id: 25), Sweden (id: 71)
• Note: Some team IDs differ between men’s/women’s (e.g., Italy: 47841 vs 48105)
• TBD placeholder teams exist (id: -2) for undetermined playoff matchups

Event Data Structure

{
  "id": "401845663",
  "date": "2026-02-11T15:40Z",
  "shortName": "FIN VS SVK",
  "competitions": [{
    "type": {"abbreviation": "QRR"},
    "venue": {"fullName": "Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena"},
    "neutralSite": true,
    "competitors": [
      {"team": {"abbreviation": "SVK", "displayName": "Slovakia"}},
      {"team": {"abbreviation": "FIN", "displayName": "Finland"}}
    ]
  }]
}

Implementation Plan

Required Changes

1. Schema (teamarr/database/schema.sql):
   • Add olympics-mens-ice-hockey and olympics-womens-ice-hockey to leagues table
   • Sport: hockey, Provider: espn
2. League Mappings (if aliases needed):
   • Map common stream names like “Olympic Hockey”, “Olympics Ice Hockey”
3. No Provider Changes Required:
   • ESPN provider already handles hockey sport correctly
   • Scoreboard/teams endpoints use identical pattern

Stream Matching Considerations

Typical IPTV stream naming patterns:

• USA: Olympic Hockey | USA vs CAN
• Olympics | Ice Hockey Men | Finland vs Sweden
• 2026 Winter Olympics | Hockey

Need to observe actual M3U data during Olympics to tune regex patterns.

Testing Strategy

1. Add leagues to schema
2. Run cache refresh (./dev.sh --update-cache)
3. Verify teams appear in cache
4. Create test event group for Olympic hockey
5. Verify scoreboard data pulls correctly

Risk Assessment

Risk	Impact	Mitigation
No NHL players (no release)	Medium	ESPN data still valid, affects roster quality
TBD teams in knockouts	Low	Standard handling, events update when determined
Stream naming unknown	Medium	Add common aliases, refine during Olympics

Timeline

• Feb 5: Women’s hockey begins
• Feb 11: Men’s hockey begins
• Feb 20: Women’s gold medal
• Feb 22: Men’s gold medal

Recommendation

Proceed with implementation immediately. Low effort, high value for users wanting Olympics coverage. Core functionality is identical to existing hockey leagues.

Future: IIHF World Championships

Same ESPN pattern likely works for:

• iihf-world-championship (if exists)
• iihf-world-juniors (if exists)

Research these separately after Olympics implementation.