Firebirds Scoreboard

A tiny web display for the Coachella Valley Firebirds (AHL). Shows the live score during a game, the next scheduled game otherwise, and flashes a full-screen GOAL! celebration (teal/red) when the Firebirds score. Built for a Raspberry Pi driving a 7" (800×480) monitor.

No framework, no dependencies — just Python 3 standard library.

Data source

Scores come from the AHL's public HockeyTech scorebar feed. server.py proxies it at /score (the feed sends no browser CORS headers, so the page can't fetch it directly). Keys are the public ones the league's own site uses.

Run locally

python3 server.py
# open http://localhost:8000

python3 test_server.py   # self-check for the game-picker / state logic

Deploy on the Raspberry Pi

Assumes Raspberry Pi OS with desktop. Paths below use <user> for your login and <repo> for the clone location (e.g. /home/<user>/firebirds-scoreboard); substitute your own. Match the User=/WorkingDirectory= in firebirds.service to wherever you cloned it.

1. Run the server on boot (systemd)

sudo cp firebirds.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl enable --now firebirds.service
systemctl status firebirds.service      # confirm it's running
curl -s localhost:8000/score            # confirm JSON

2. Launch Chromium in kiosk mode on boot

Raspberry Pi OS (Bookworm/Trixie) runs Wayland with the labwc compositor, so the kiosk is started from labwc's autostart script, as the user that logs into the desktop (not root, even if the server runs as root). Older X11 ~/.config/autostart/*.desktop + xset instructions do not apply here.

Needs grim (Wayland screenshot tool) for the self-heal check below: sudo apt-get install -y grim.

As the desktop user:

mkdir -p ~/.config/labwc
cat > ~/.config/labwc/autostart <<'EOF'
# wait until the scoreboard server is answering
while ! curl -sf http://localhost:8000/score >/dev/null; do sleep 1; done

# labwc + Chromium bug: the FIRST toplevel on a fresh session renders a stuck
# white frame and never repaints; relaunching fixes it. So launch, then check
# the real screen with grim and relaunch until the scoreboard actually paints.
LAUNCH="chromium --kiosk http://localhost:8000 --ozone-platform=wayland --password-store=basic --disable-session-crashed-bubble --noerrdialogs --disable-infobars --start-fullscreen"
$LAUNCH &
for i in $(seq 1 12); do
  sleep 25
  grim /tmp/kiosk_check.png 2>/dev/null || continue
  sz=$(stat -c %s /tmp/kiosk_check.png 2>/dev/null || echo 0)
  # white ~2KB, desktop wallpaper ~290KB, scoreboard (mostly black) ~15-60KB
  if [ "$sz" -gt 6000 ] && [ "$sz" -lt 120000 ]; then break; fi
  pkill chromium; sleep 3; $LAUNCH &
done
EOF

The binary is chromium on Pi OS (not chromium-browser). Notes:

• The first while loop waits for the server so Chromium doesn't load before the port is up.
• The self-heal loop is the important part. On labwc the very first Chromium window comes up as a stuck white frame and never repaints — load settling doesn't help, only a relaunch does. The loop screenshots the screen with grim and relaunches until the scoreboard paints (verified on real hardware: a slow Pi reaches the scoreboard unattended ~3–4 min after boot).
• Plain --kiosk <url>, not --app= (which also renders white under Wayland).
• --password-store=basic suppresses the gnome-keyring password prompt on boot.
• --disable-session-crashed-bubble avoids the "restore pages" page after an unclean shutdown.
• Do not add --disable-gpu: Pi OS wraps Chromium with --use-angle=gles and --enable-gpu-rasterization, and forcing --disable-gpu on top is another white-screen cause. Let the GPU path run.

A dedicated scoreboard only needs this file; delete it to get the normal desktop back.

3. Stop the screen from blanking

xset does nothing under Wayland. Use sudo raspi-config → Display Options → Screen Blanking → No.

Reboot. Chromium should come up full-screen on the scoreboard.

Notes / tuning

• Page polls /score every 15s (POLL_MS in index.html). The feed itself updates roughly once a minute during a game.
• game_state() in server.py maps the feed's GameStatus: "1" = scheduled, "4" = final, anything else = live. The exact in-progress code should be confirmed on a live game day and adjusted if needed.
• The goal flash fires when the Firebirds goal count increases between polls (never on first load).