Forecheck Hockey Now Works Offline

Forecheck Hockey is now a Progressive Web App. That means you can install it on your phone, tablet, or computer and use it without an internet connection. The rink board, tournament brackets, player evaluations, game sheets, attendance tracker, drills library, glossary, and skills guides all work offline.

Why Offline Matters for Hockey

Hockey happens in rinks. Rinks are not known for reliable WiFi. If you have ever tried to pull up a practice plan on your phone while standing at the bench and watched it spin, you understand the problem.

With PWA support, the site loads from your device's cache instead of the network. Open it in airplane mode, in a rink basement with no signal, or on a bus to an away game. It works. Every tool, every page, every drill.

How to Install

Installing a PWA is straightforward on every platform.

On an iPhone or iPad: Open Forecheck Hockey in Safari. Tap the share button (the square with an arrow pointing up). Scroll down and tap "Add to Home Screen." Name it and tap "Add." The Forecheck Hockey icon now appears on your home screen and opens like a native app.

On Android: Open Forecheck Hockey in Chrome. An install banner appears at the bottom of the screen offering to install the app. Tap "Install." Alternatively, use the browser menu and tap "Install App." The app installs and appears in your app drawer with the Forecheck Hockey icon. Long-press the icon for quick shortcuts to the Rink Board, Tournament, and Drills.

On Windows: Open Forecheck Hockey in Chrome or Edge. Click the install icon in the address bar (a small monitor with a down arrow in Chrome, or a plus icon in Edge). Confirm the installation. The app opens in its own window and appears in your Start menu.

On macOS: Open Forecheck Hockey in Chrome. Click the install icon in the address bar. Confirm. The app appears in your Applications folder and Launchpad.

Once installed, the app opens in its own window without browser chrome — no address bar, no tabs. It looks and feels like a standalone application.

What Works Offline

Everything. The service worker caches all pages, CSS, JavaScript, and static assets on your first visit. After that initial load, the entire site is available offline. Specifically:

• Rink board — Full play designer, scorekeeping, rosters, animations, drill library, practice planner, timers, season planner, and all export features
• Tournament brackets — Create, edit, and view brackets in all four formats (single elim, double elim, round robin, pool play + elimination)
• Player evaluations — Rate players, compare radar charts, print scouting reports
• Game sheets — Fill out game sheets, export JSON, print
• Attendance tracker — Mark attendance, view statistics
• Skills guides — All skating, shooting, stickhandling, positional, and team systems guides
• Drills library — All 70+ drills with search and filtering
• Glossary — All 190+ terms with search and A-Z navigation
• Blog — All articles with full text

The only features that require an internet connection are the ones that inherently depend on it: rink board online collaboration (WebRTC), YouTube video embeds (Arena DJ and tournament livestreams), GTranslate language translation, and Pagefind search (which loads its index from the network). Fonts from Bunny Fonts and libraries from cdnjs are cached on first load so they work offline afterward. Everything else is fully functional offline.

Your Data Stays on Your Device

PWA support reinforces something that has always been true about Forecheck Hockey: your data is yours. All rink board data, tournament brackets, player evaluations, game sheets, and attendance records are stored in your browser's localStorage. The service worker caches the site itself. None of this data ever touches a server.

This means there is no account to create, no cloud sync to configure, no password to remember, and no concern about a third party having access to your coaching notes or player evaluations. The tradeoff is that your data is tied to the browser on that device. If you clear your browser data, it is gone. Use the JSON export features in each tool to back up anything important.

Cache Updates

When we push updates to the site, the service worker detects the change and downloads the new version in the background. The next time you open the app, you get the latest version automatically. You do not need to manually update or reinstall.

No Gimmicks

PWA support is not a marketing checkbox. It solves a real problem for coaches and players who use these tools in environments where internet access is unreliable. Install the app, use it at the rink, and never worry about connectivity again.

As always, Forecheck Hockey is free, has no ads, requires no account, and does not track you.