Subscribing vs. downloading a file

Every calendar feed in Tiebrake gives you two very different buttons — "Subscribe" and "Download .ics" — and which one you use changes how it behaves afterwards.

Subscribe hands your calendar app a live link (a webcal:// URL). Your calendar app then checks that link on its own schedule — usually every 12–24 hours, not instantly — and pulls in whatever's changed: new matches, reschedules, cancellations. You set it up once and it keeps itself current, just not in real time.

Download .ics gives you a one-time snapshot as a file. Importing it adds those matches to your calendar exactly as they stood at that moment — and that's it. If a match gets rescheduled or a swap changes your schedule afterwards, that file doesn't know about it. You'd need to download and re-import to catch up.

If you're likely to have a swap or two over the season, Subscribe is almost always the better choice — it's the same link doing the updating for you instead of a file you have to remember to refresh. Download is fine for a one-off, like sharing a fixed schedule with someone who doesn't use a calendar app.

"Copy link" gives you the raw URL if you want to paste it somewhere yourself instead of using either button directly.