Case Study

Industry Sports Club - Ice Hockey
Project Duration 4 months
Team 1 Dev, 1 Designer, 1 SA

Headless CMS: Real-time data & performance under load.

  1. Challenges
  2. Project Journey
  3. Results
seconds loading time fast, faster, Vienna Capitals
~0,5
SEO Lighthouse
100%
Accessibility Lighthouse
100%
Visitors on game days, without performance drops
>5k

LEAN-CODERS realized the complete website relaunchof the Vienna Capitals ice hockey club – from an outdated Contao installation from 2011to a modern headless architecturewith Astro and Strapi 5.

The new platform delivers ~0.5 seconds loading time, perfect Lighthouse scores, and handles thousands of visitors on game days – without performance drops. The editorial team creates content independently today, without developer tickets.

Challenges

A website that has grown over a decade, which could no longer keep up with performance, usability, and editorial flexibility.

  • Outdated design & accessibility

    Rigid, outdated design with insufficient accessibility and poor mobile representation. Concrete impact: Poor user experience on mobile devices, poor usability for visitors with disabilities.

  • Sales channels poorly visible

    Online shop, ticket shop, and hospitality areas were inadequately presented. Concrete impact: Poor discoverability of sales channels and thus lost revenue.

  • Static content structure

    Player profiles and other content were rigidly structured. Concrete impact: Updates were cumbersome, many inquiries from the editorial team to developers.

  • Lack of emotional player presentation

    The squad was presented in a simple table without personal information. Concrete impact: No emotional connection of fans to the players.

  • Legacy system

    Contao CMS in use since 2011, design from 2015 – no longer up to date for modern requirements.

Eishockeyspieler in voller Montur mit Helm und Trikot, rechts daneben persönliche Informationen inklusive Name, Position, Schusshand, Größe, Gewicht, Geburtsdatum und Nationalität.
Logo von PostgreSQL mit stilisiertem Elefantenkopf als Symbol. „Logo von Docker mit stilisiertem blauen Wal, der einen Containerstapel trägt.“ Shopify Github Actions Astro Strapi_5 Logo des Dienstes imgproxy mit stilisierter Kamera und Pfeil. Redis argoCD Microsoft_Azure Logo von Mailgun mit rotem @-Symbol und Schriftzug „Email Automation“.

Project Journey

Conceptualization

UX/UI design and information architecture as a basis. Technical decision for Astro as the frontend framework and Strapi 5 as the headless CMS. Definition of architecture for external integrations (schedule data, merchandise, email).

Design

From mood boards to low-fidelity wireframes to final high-fidelity designs – several variants were developed for presentation. Result: complete design library and clean handover to the dev team.

Core development & CMS setup
  1. Block-based page builder in Strapi 5
  2. Astro frontend – no JavaScript bloat, maximum Lighthouse scores, ideal for image-heavy pages
  3. Redis caching – fast loading times even under load due to cached API data and HTML responses
  4. imgproxy – WebP conversion, dynamic cropping, high-quality images without performance losses
  5. Live score & real-time updates – reliable score data even on game days under high load
  6. Third-party integration – CapsCore (schedules/statistics), Shopify (merchandise), Mailgun (email)
  7. Containerized deployment – all services isolated and scalable
Content integration & launch

Content filling by the editorial team, UI and integration testing, load testing under real game day conditions, go-live and monitoring. Seamless rollout without downtime.

Results

Vienna Capitals: Fast on the ice, now also online.

We deliver. They stay. Repeat.

Performance

  • Loading time ~0.5 seconds on average
  • Lighthouse SEO ~100 / 100
  • Lighthouse Accessibility ~100 / 100
  • Game day stability >5,000 visitors without performance drops


Maintainability & editorial

  • Modular blocks – create pages without developers
  • ~30 player and coach profiles integrated
  • ~30 articles/month independently by the editorial team
  • Fewer developer inquiries thanks to CMS-first approach


Technical quality

  • Modern headless architecture instead of legacy CMS from 2011
  • Image and video material can be integrated without performance losses
  • Flexibly expandable for upcoming features
  • Fully containerized deployment


Long-term partnership

  • Sponsorship partnership with the Vienna Capitals
  • Ongoing maintenance and operation of the platform
  • Continuous development of new features
Mann mit Brille und grauem Hemd lächelt freundlich in die Kamera.

This guy codes plugins for Strapi as a hobby and got featured in the official Strapi Store.

Book a discovery call with your expert now

Book now!

If writing is more your thing.

Go to the contact form