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European Hockey Data in R: SHL, Liiga, DEL, KHL, National League and More

Saiem Gilani, Ben Howell

Source: vignettes/articles/european-hockey-leagues.Rmd
european-hockey-leagues.Rmd

fastRhockey reads the public data feeds of thirteen European hockey leagues. Sweden’s SHL and HockeyAllsvenskan, Finland’s Liiga, Germany’s DEL, the multinational ICE Hockey League, the UK’s EIHL, Denmark’s Metal Ligaen, the KHL and VHL, Switzerland’s National League and federation (SIHF) feeds, the Czech Extraliga and France’s Ligue Magnus. Each league has its own prefix, and most offer schedules, standings, play-by-play, box scores and, for several, shot locations.

These wrappers match the European hockey functions in sportsdataverse-py, so the same calls work from Python.

What you’ll learn

  • Which prefix belongs to which league, and what each league’s feed covers.
  • The conventions every European function shares: end-year seasons, request spacing, raw versus parsed output and classed errors.
  • How to get a schedule, standings and a game’s play-by-play for each league.

Before you start: these examples call live websites

Every function in this article calls the league’s own website or data host. They are not run when this page is built, because some of these hosts are slow or refuse requests from data-centre networks. Run them from your own computer. If a call stalls, try again later or from another network.

If you are new to fastRhockey, read Getting started with fastRhockey first.

Which leagues are covered, and with which prefix?

League Country Prefix Data host Highlights Reference
SHL Sweden shl_ shl.se Schedule, standings, play-by-play, box scores, player profiles and careers, team stats SHL
HockeyAllsvenskan Sweden ha_ hockeyallsvenskan.se Games, standings, play-by-play, skater, goalie and team stats, leaders HockeyAllsvenskan
Liiga Finland liiga_ liiga.fi Schedule, standings, game events, goals, lineups, shot maps, player and team stats Liiga
DEL Germany del_ DEL scoring system feed Schedule, standings, play-by-play, shots, shifts, faceoffs, box scores DEL
ICE Hockey League Austria and neighbours icehl_ ICEHL scoring system feed Schedule, standings, play-by-play, shots, faceoffs, box scores ICE Hockey League
EIHL United Kingdom eihl_ EIHL scoring system feed Schedule, standings, play-by-play, shots, box scores EIHL
Metal Ligaen Denmark metal_ Metal Ligaen scoring system feed Schedule, standings, play-by-play, box scores Metal Ligaen
KHL Russia and neighbours khl_ khl.ru and its live-stats feed Schedule, standings, play-by-play, shots, box scores, player careers, playoff bracket KHL
VHL Russia vhl_ vhlru.ru Schedule, standings, play-by-play, goals, penalties, box scores, player stats VHL
National League Switzerland nl_ nationalleague.ch Schedule, standings, play-by-play, shots, lineups, box scores, team and player stats National League
Swiss Ice Hockey Federation Switzerland sihf_ data.sihf.ch Results, standings, play-by-play, lineups and many player and team stat tables (faceoffs by zone, power play, penalty kill, TOI) SIHF
Extraliga (ELH) Czechia elh_ Czech league data feeds Scoreboard, game ids, play-by-play, events, shots Extraliga
Ligue Magnus France magnus_ liguemagnus.com Schedule, standings, play-by-play, lineups, shootouts, competition phases and rounds Ligue Magnus

The number of exported functions per prefix, counted from the installed package:

prefixes <- c("shl", "ha", "liiga", "del", "icehl", "eihl", "metal",
              "khl", "vhl", "nl", "sihf", "elh", "magnus")
exports <- getNamespaceExports("fastRhockey")

counts <- vapply(prefixes, function(p) sum(startsWith(exports, paste0(p, "_"))), integer(1))
data.frame(prefix = prefixes, functions = unname(counts))
#>    prefix functions
#> 1     shl        29
#> 2      ha        11
#> 3   liiga        23
#> 4     del        12
#> 5   icehl        12
#> 6    eihl         9
#> 7   metal         8
#> 8     khl        23
#> 9     vhl        14
#> 10     nl        17
#> 11   sihf        33
#> 12    elh         9
#> 13 magnus        11
sum(counts)
#> [1] 211

What conventions do all the European functions share?

Seasons are end years. season = 2026 is the 2025-26 season, as everywhere in fastRhockey. Some feeds key seasons by their start year internally; the wrappers translate for you.

Requests are spaced and retried. Every request waits at least one second after the previous request to the same host. Answers of 429, 500, 502, 503 and 504 are retried, honouring a Retry-After header (capped at 120 seconds). Loops over many games are slow on purpose; keep them that way.

Parsed or raw. Most functions take return_parsed = TRUE (the default) for a tidy data frame, or FALSE for the feed’s raw JSON as a list, which is useful when a field you need isn’t parsed yet.

Classed errors. A failed request raises a condition you can catch by class:

  • fastRhockey_no_data: the provider has nothing for this request (for example, a game that hasn’t started);
  • fastRhockey_asset_fetch: the answer is unknown, such as a network failure;
  • fastRhockey_bad_request: the arguments are invalid.

All three inherit from fastRhockey_error.

library(fastRhockey)

standings <- tryCatch(
  khl_standings(season = 2026),
  fastRhockey_no_data = function(e) NULL,
  fastRhockey_error = function(e) {
    message("KHL request failed: ", conditionMessage(e))
    NULL
  }
)

How do I get Swedish hockey data (SHL and HockeyAllsvenskan)?

The SHL keys each season and game type by an identifier; shl_ssgt_uuid() finds it for you, and shl_standings() takes it. Games are identified by a game_uuid.

shl_schedule(season = 2026)

ssgt <- shl_ssgt_uuid(2026)          # regular season; shl_ssgt_uuid(2025, "playoff") for playoffs
shl_standings(ssgt_uuid = ssgt)

shl_pbp(game_uuid = "bdhvuc5tex")
shl_player_box(game_uuid = "bdhvuc5tex")

HockeyAllsvenskan, Sweden’s second tier, has season-level games, standings and stat leaders. A single game is addressed by its slug.

ha_games(season = 2026)
ha_standings(season = 2026)
ha_leaders(metric = "TP")
ha_game(slug = "20260918-aik-modo")

How do I get Finnish Liiga data?

Liiga game functions take a season and a game_id. tournament selects the regular season ("runkosarja") or the playoffs ("playoffs").

liiga_schedule(season = 2026, tournament = "runkosarja")
liiga_standings(season = 2026)

liiga_game(season = 2026, game_id = 1)
liiga_game_goals(season = 2026, game_id = 1)
liiga_shotmap(season = 2026, game_id = 1)

How do I get DEL, ICE Hockey League, EIHL and Metal Ligaen data?

These four leagues use the same scoring system, so their functions share one shape: season-level calls take season and a competition league_id, game-level calls take a match_id.

# Germany
del_schedule(season = 2027, league_id = 1)
del_standings(season = 2027, league_id = 1)
del_pbp(match_id = 4444)
del_shots(match_id = 4444)

# ICE Hockey League
icehl_schedule(season = 2027, league_id = 1)
icehl_pbp(match_id = 8161)

# United Kingdom (EIHL uses league_id = 3 for its league competition)
eihl_schedule(season = 2027, league_id = 3)
eihl_pbp(match_id = 4440)

# Denmark
metal_schedule(season = 2027, league_id = 1)
metal_pbp(match_id = 575)

All four share one data host, so the one-second spacing applies across them together.

How do I get KHL and VHL data? 

khl_schedule(season = 2026)
khl_standings(season = 2026)
khl_pbp(game_id = 898236, season = 2026)
khl_shots(game_id = 898236, season = 2026)
khl_playoff_bracket(season = 2026)

vhl_schedule(season = 2026)
vhl_standings(season = 2026)
vhl_pbp(game_id = 899223, season = 2026)

How do I get Swiss hockey data (National League and SIHF)?

The National League’s own site and the Swiss federation’s data service overlap. The federation feed has the deeper stat tables; the league site has shots and lineups.

nl_schedule(season = 2026)
nl_standings(season = 2026)
nl_pbp(game_id = 20261105000325)
nl_shots(game_id = 20261105000325)

sihf_results(season = 2026, league_id = 1)
sihf_standings(season = 2026, league_id = 1)
sihf_pbp(game_id = 20261105000325)

How do I get Czech Extraliga data? 

elh_scoreboard(date = "2026-01-15")
elh_game_ids(season = 2027)
elh_pbp(season = 2027, match_id = 2928321)
elh_shots(match_id = 2928321)

How do I get French Ligue Magnus data?

Ligue Magnus organises a season into phases and rounds. magnus_phases() and magnus_rounds() list them, and standings take a phase_id.

magnus_schedule(season = 2027, phase_id = 714, round = 2)
magnus_standings(phase_id = 714)
magnus_pbp(game_id = 77779)

Can I plot European shot locations?

Yes, for the leagues that publish them: del_shots(), icehl_shots(), eihl_shots(), khl_shots(), nl_shots(), elh_shots() and liiga_shotmap(). Each provider uses its own coordinate frame, so check the ranges of the x and y columns and convert to feet from centre ice before drawing them on a sportyR rink. The rink plots and shot maps article shows the plotting side.

Where to go next