Update on the New Website Platform
During this off-season, the LCMHL decided to switch over from our previous website platform to SportsHeadz. This included the seven association sites moving over as well. Also, the Ottawa Competitive B League (
ottawableague.ca) also made the decision to move to SportsHeadz this summer. With the new Hockey Canada Pathways coming in this year, it was a busy offseason for the many volunteers who run District4 and the LCMHL.
We are now a couple weeks into the season, and with a few hiccups, the new website platforms are up and operating. The hope is that subsequent years will be smoother as we have some experience and documentation around the new platform, and already some ideas to improve things going forward.
So why did we move to SportsHeadz?? There are a few reasons:
- Their level of development is greater than what we had previously and the old environment had not been updated in many years.
- The previous environment had no mobile presence, whereas SportsHeadz has a solid application for keeping track of your team.
- SportsHeadz backend systems for setting up seasons are a definite improvement. Now that we have this season under our belts future seasons should be smoother.
- The level of technical support from SportsHeadz has been better.
- No obtrusive ads on our sites (LCMHL or the associations).
- Cost-wise, they are on-par with our previous provider.
- For Stittsville and West Carleton associations, they are able to manage their LCMHL and B League teams in the same environment.
Now that games are underway, the most asked question is : 'Where are the player statistics?' The short answer is: 'Coming soon' Longer answer: We always had a requirement for SportsHeadz to provide the same type of player statistics as we had on the previous platform. They are committed to providing them, but it wasn't possible to onboard everyone and make the necessary system changes in time for the beginning of our season. Player stats will be rolled out when we and SportsHeadz feel they're ready to go. We fully expect there to be further tweaks this season until we are happy with the result. Statistics from the previous sites will not be carried forward, unfortunately.
SportsHeadz is also working to improve the Post-Game Details pages, so individual games can be reviewed. This will make the SportsHeadz platform more in line with the offerings the league had with the previous environment.
Another question we get asked is about the timing from when the game results are posted until they make it to the LCMHL website. It isn't instantaneous, but it is usually there within an hour after the game results have been posted. The standings on the association websites are much quicker to be updated, usually within minutes.
I hope this answers some of the questions around the new platform, and I encourage everyone to go get the mobile application (see the bottom of the front page of the LCMHL or your association's websites).