Hockey API

Pagination and limits

Six Hockey API endpoints return a paginated envelope. The rest return their result directly.

Paginated Not paginated

highlights, leagues, matches, teams, bookmakers, odds

Everything addressed by an id, plus countries, standings, head to head and last five games.

The envelope

A paginated response wraps its results in data and adds two objects.

dataobject[]requiredThe results themselves. The shape depends on the endpoint.
paginationPaginationResponserequiredHow many results exist and where this page sits.3 fields
totalCountnumberrequiredResults matching your query, not the number returned on this page.
offsetnumberrequiredThe offset this page was fetched at.
limitnumberrequiredThe page size used.
planPlanResponserequiredYour current API subscription tier, and a message explaining it.2 fields
tierstringrequiredYour current API subscription tier.
messagestringrequiredExplanation message regarding your current tier.

Example response

200 application/json 
{
  "data": [
    "..."
  ],
  "pagination": {
    "totalCount": 490,
    "offset": 20,
    "limit": 100
  },
  "plan": {
    "tier": "BASIC",
    "message": "Some results might be hidden with FREE tier. Check your API coverage for more information: https://rapidapi.com/highlightly-api-highlightly-api-default/api/sport-highlights-api/details"
  }
}

Paging through results

limit sets the page size and offset skips that many results. Page by holding limit steady and advancing offset until you have covered totalCount. 

const key = process.env.HIGHLIGHTLY_API_KEY
const limit = 40
const all = []

let offset = 0
let total = Infinity

while (offset < total) {
  const url = `https://hockey.highlightly.net/highlights?leagueId=16953&limit=${limit}&offset=${offset}`
  const response = await fetch(url, {
    headers: { 'x-rapidapi-key': key }
  })

  if (!response.ok) {
    throw new Error(`Highlightly responded ${response.status}`)
  }

  const { data, pagination } = await response.json()

  all.push(...data)

  total = pagination.totalCount
  offset += limit
}

totalCount is the number of results matching your query, not the number on the current page, so it is the value to page against.

Default page sizes differ per endpoint. Teams defaults to 500, matches and leagues to 100, highlights to 40, bookmakers to 20 and odds to 5, so read the limit you get back rather than assuming one number everywhere.

Your plan

plan.tier names your subscription, and plan.message is an explanation message regarding that tier. The spec gives this example message.

Some results might be hidden with FREE tier. Check your API coverage for more information.

It carries a link to your coverage details.

Three endpoints are affected on the Basic and Free plans. Highlights may be restricted, and odds and geo restrictions are not available at all. The same restrictions apply with an All Sports API subscription.

Plans and their limits are listed on the Hockey API page and the All Sports API page.

Rate limits

Two response headers track your quota.

Header Meaning
x-ratelimit-requests-limit Requests your plan allows. Static.
x-ratelimit-requests-remaining Requests left. At zero, requests fail until the daily quota resets.

Paging a large result set spends quota quickly, since each page is one request. A query returning 4,000 results at the default highlights page size of 40 costs 100 requests, and 40 is already the highlights maximum. Narrow the query with more filters to reduce that, and cache results whose refresh interval is measured in hours rather than minutes.

On an All Sports API subscription, one quota covers every sport. Hockey requests draw on the same allowance as requests to any other sport, so paging a large hockey result set also reduces what is left for the rest.