Last updated: November 13, 2026
Follow The Puck covers Minnesota high school hockey on the website at followthepuck.com and in the Follow The Puck app for iPhone. Both are operated by FTP Hockey LLC (“Follow The Puck,” “we” or “us”).
The website and the app handle information differently, so this policy covers them separately where it matters. If you have a question about anything here, email hello@followthepuck.com.
The short version
- The app has no online accounts, no advertising and no third-party analytics. Your favorites and optional profile stay on your phone.
- Games Near Me is optional. If you use it, your location or ZIP code is sent to our server to find nearby games. We don’t save it in our database.
- The website uses cookies for Google Analytics, Google AdSense advertising and affiliate links, and uses email providers to run our newsletter.
- We don’t sell your personal information.
The Follow The Puck app
Favorites and settings
Favorite teams, favorite players, your Games Near Me settings and similar preferences are saved in the app’s storage on your device. They aren’t sent to us and they don’t sync between devices.
Optional profile
The app lets you set up a profile with a display name and an email address. This is not an online account. There’s no password, nothing is verified, and the profile is never sent to us. It lives only on your device and is removed when you delete the app.
Games Near Me and your location
Games Near Me is optional, and the app doesn’t ask for your location until you open it. You can use your current location, enter a ZIP code, or skip it entirely.
- Current location. If you allow it, iOS shares your approximate position with the app only while you’re using it. The app saves those coordinates on your device and sends them to our server with each Games Near Me search so it can return games within the distance you chose. To show your city name, the app also uses Apple’s location services, which sends the coordinates to Apple.
- ZIP code. If you enter a ZIP code instead, it’s sent to our server, which looks it up in a ZIP code table and returns the center point of that ZIP.
Our server uses the coordinates or ZIP code to answer that request. It doesn’t store them in our database and doesn’t connect them to you. Like any web server, our hosting provider’s request logs can record the request itself, including the coordinates or ZIP code it carried. See “Server logs” below.
You can turn location off any time in iOS Settings under Follow The Puck, switch to a ZIP code, or delete the app to remove saved location data from your device.
Partner links
The app can show a Partners section for sponsors that support Follow The Puck. When you tap a partner, the app tells our server, and the server adds one to a daily total for that partner. That total holds only the partner, the date and the count. It doesn’t include your IP address, a device identifier or anything from your profile. We use these totals to tell partners how often their link was tapped. The partner’s website then opens, and what it collects is governed by that partner’s own policy.
Game Picks and Fan Rankings
Game Picks and FTP Fan Rankings are optional parts of the app. You can use everything else without them.
There is no account. You don’t give a name, an email address or a password, and there is nothing to sign in to.
When an installation identifier is created. The first time you save a pick or submit a ballot, the app requests a random identifier and a matching key from our server and stores the key on your device. Browsing the app, opening Fan Zone, and looking at a game or at results do not create this identifier.
What we keep about the installation. We store the random identifier, a one-way hash of the key rather than the key itself, the platform the app runs on, when the identifier was created, and when it was last used. Fan Zone does not collect Apple’s advertising identifier or identifier for vendors.
What we keep when you take part.
- For a pick: the game, the team you picked, when you saved it, and after the game is final, whether it was correct.
- For a ballot: the class, the voting week, the teams you ranked in the order you ranked them, and the team names as they read at the time.
Both are stored against the installation identifier. That is what lets the app show you your own picks and lets you change your ballot until voting closes.
What we don’t connect it to. Your locally stored profile, favorite teams and players, and Games Near Me settings are not connected to a pick or a ballot. Any Games Near Me searches sent to our server are described separately in this policy.
What we use it for. We use this information to run the features: showing you your own picks and ballot, counting one pick per installation per game and one ballot per installation per class per week, and calculating the totals described below. We do not use Fan Zone information for advertising, sell or rent it, or combine it with information about you from other companies’ apps or websites.
Totals from Game Picks. Before a game finishes, once you have made your own pick and at least ten installations have submitted picks for that game, the app can show the percentage of picks for each team. It is a percentage of picks, never a list of who picked what.
Totals from Fan Rankings. While voting is open, the app and its API do not expose aggregate rankings for that week. They show only the number of ballots received so far. After voting closes, results can be published if at least fifteen ballots were submitted for that class in that week. Below that threshold, the published result shows the count and explains that there were too few ballots. A team is listed only if it appeared on at least two ballots. Individual ballots are never published.
Published results. A published Fan Rankings result holds team totals without installation identifiers or links to individual ballots. Published totals remain after individual data is deleted or expires. We cannot identify and subtract an individual installation’s contribution from those published totals.
Limiting repeat voting. To limit repeated requests, our server temporarily stores a salted hash derived from the network address a request came from, together with timing information. These records expire after 24 hours. The hash is used for this safeguard rather than storing the raw network address in the Fan Zone throttle record. Separate hosting and server logs are described elsewhere in this policy. People sharing a network, such as an arena’s Wi-Fi, can share the same network address.
What these safeguards do and do not do. One pick and one ballot per installation is not one per person. Someone with a phone and a tablet can have two installations. People sharing an installation share its picks and ballot. These measures reduce casual manipulation. They cannot enforce one vote per person, and we do not claim they do. Fan results represent submissions made in the app, rather than a representative survey of people.
Deleting your picks and ballots. In the app, open More, then “My Data,” and choose to delete your data. This removes the installation identifier and every pick and ballot stored against it. It does not remove your contribution from already published Fan Rankings totals, because those totals no longer identify which installation contributed them.
Deleting by email. Because there is no account, an email does not tell us which installation is yours. If you still have the app, the in-app deletion control is the reliable way to delete your Fan Zone data. You can also contact hello@followthepuck.com for help. We can explain what is stored and delete information that can be identified, but without the installation identifier we cannot locate your picks and ballots by your name or email address. The app does not currently display that identifier.
Deleting the app and reinstalling. Deleting the app does not itself delete information on our server. To delete that information, use the in-app control first. Reinstalling does not guarantee a fresh identifier. A key may remain in secure device storage or be carried across through backup or restoration. In other circumstances, the app may receive a new identifier. We cannot promise which will happen on your device.
Videos and outside links
Some games and features include YouTube videos. The app loads them through YouTube’s privacy-enhanced embed, but when you play a video, Google receives the request and its own privacy policy applies. Links to articles, social media, streams and partner sites open outside our content, and those sites have their own practices.
What the app doesn’t do
The app doesn’t include advertising, third-party analytics, crash-reporting services or tracking across other companies’ apps and websites. It doesn’t send push notifications. If you use Game Picks or Fan Rankings, the app sends the installation information and submissions described above to our server. Games Near Me searches and server logging are described separately in this policy.
The followthepuck.com website
Information you give us
When you sign up for our newsletter, contact us, or submit a form on the site, we collect what you provide, usually your name and email address. We use it to send what you asked for and to reply to you. Marketing email always includes an unsubscribe link.
Information collected automatically
Like most websites, followthepuck.com collects technical information as you browse, such as your IP address, browser and device type, the pages you visit, how long you stay and the site that referred you. This comes from cookies and similar tools provided by the services listed below.
Cookies, analytics and advertising
- Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager help us understand which stories people read and how they find the site.
- Google AdSense shows ads on the website. Google and its partners may use cookies to show ads based on your visits to this and other sites. You can manage personalized ads at adssettings.google.com, and you can read how Google uses information from sites that use its services at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
- Polls. When you vote in a poll on the site, the poll tool records your vote with a cookie and your IP address to limit repeat voting.
- Embedded content. Pages can include Instagram posts and YouTube videos. Those services can set their own cookies when the content loads or plays.
You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Some parts of the site may not work as expected without them.
Affiliate links
Some links on the website are affiliate links, including links to Pure Hockey through AvantLink and to Amazon. If you buy something after clicking one, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The retailer or affiliate network may use cookies to credit the sale.
Follow The Puck is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Service providers
We use outside companies to run Follow The Puck. They process information on our behalf to provide their service to us.
- App: Render hosts the app’s server, MongoDB Atlas hosts its database, and Apple distributes the app and provides on-device location services.
- Website: WordPress runs the site, Cloudflare protects and delivers it, Google provides analytics and advertising, and Kit and Mailchimp manage newsletter signups and email.
Server logs
Our app server and our hosting providers keep standard request logs to operate and secure the service. A log entry can include an IP address, the time, the address requested (which for Games Near Me can include coordinates or a ZIP code) and the response. We use logs to keep things running and to investigate problems, not to build profiles of people. Logs are kept for the period our hosting provider retains them.
How we share information
We don’t sell or rent personal information. We share it only with the service providers above so they can do their job for us, when the law requires it, or to protect the safety and security of Follow The Puck and the people who use it. Information collected by Google, YouTube, Instagram, affiliate networks and partner websites is handled under their own privacy policies.
Keeping and deleting information
- App data on your device stays until you change it or delete the app. Deleting the app removes your profile, favorites and saved location.
- Partner tap totals contain no personal information.
- Newsletter subscriptions last until you unsubscribe.
- Messages you send us are kept as long as we need them to help you.
- Game Picks and Fan Rankings installation identifiers, together with the picks and ballots stored against them, expire at midnight Central Time on August 1 of the year the relevant hockey season ends. The expiration date is fixed when the installation identifier is created and is not extended by using the app.
- The network-address hashes used to limit repeated requests expire 24 hours after they are written.
- Published Fan Rankings results contain team totals without installation identifiers and are retained as a record of that voting week.
To ask us to access, correct or delete personal information we hold, such as your newsletter email address or a message you sent, email hello@followthepuck.com.
Your choices
- Use the app and the website without creating a profile or signing up for anything.
- Turn location access on or off in iOS Settings at any time.
- Unsubscribe from email with the link at the bottom of any newsletter.
- Block or clear cookies in your browser, and manage Google ad personalization at adssettings.google.com.
- Email us to make a request about your information.
- You can choose whether to use Game Picks and Fan Rankings. The rest of the app works either way. You can delete your installation identifier and its stored picks and ballots through More → My Data. Already published Fan Rankings totals remain as described above.
Young readers
Follow The Puck covers high school athletes, and plenty of our readers are students. The app and website are meant for a general audience and aren’t directed to children under 13. We don’t knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has sent us personal information, email hello@followthepuck.com and we’ll delete it.
Changes to this policy
When our practices change, we’ll update this page and the “Last updated” date at the top. If a change is significant, we’ll make it clear on the site or in the app.
Contact
FTP Hockey LLC
Email: hello@followthepuck.com
Support: followthepuck.com/support