NHL sets records for total, average attendance

NEW YORK -- National Hockey League fans returned in record numbers in the 2005-06 regular season. A total of 20,854,169 and per-game average of 16,955 attended the 1,230 games, 2.4% ahead of the 2003-04 figures (20,356,199 and 16,550) and 1.2% ahead of the previous record season of 2001-02 (20,614,613 and 16,760). In all, NHL teams played to 91.7% of capacity.

"We can't thank our fans enough for the record support they showed," Commissioner Gary Bettman said. "For all our Clubs, a terrific season was made even better by the enthusiasm and encouragement our fans displayed night after night. We are deeply appreciative."

By attracting sellout crowds of 21,273 to the Bell Centre for each of their 41 home games, the Montreal Canadiens established a League single-season, single-team attendance record of 872,193. The Canadiens eclipsed the previous mark of 861,072, or 21,002 per game, which they set in 1996-97.

The Canadiens, Calgary Flames, Colorado Avalanche, Detroit Red Wings, Edmonton Oilers, Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota Wild, New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators, Philadelphia Flyers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Toronto Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks played to 98% of capacity or better over the full season.

The Avalanche sold out each game at 18,007-capacity Pepsi Center, extending the NHL's longest current sellout streak to 480 games, including playoffs. The streak began in November, 1995, during the team's inaugural season in Denver.

Twenty-four of the 30 NHL clubs finished even with or ahead of their 2003-04 performance. The top gainers were the Pittsburgh Penguins (+33%), Carolina Hurricanes (+27%), Calgary Flames (+16%), Tampa Bay Lightning (+15%), Nashville Predators (+10%), Buffalo Sabres (+10%), Ottawa Senators (+10%), Boston Bruins (+7%) and San Jose Sharks (+6%).

Good now Pittsburgh fills the Mellon Arena to 33% Capacity

The attendance numbers look encouraging. This is good news for hockey and might help them get a good tv contract.

The attendance numbers look encouraging. This is good news for hockey and might help them get a good tv contract.

NBC did a decent job of saturday afternoon coverage in the second half

and i absolutely love FSN coverage
wish i got it more often

The catch 22 is that Bettman gets to gloat about this.

and i'lll continue to complain.....of course attendance is up if hockey is never on TV how are the fans going to see it ?

NHL's TV plot losing U.S. audience

If you were covering hockey back when Gary Bettman was in university, you got to see the mistakes made by Bettman's predecessor as the head honcho of the NHL, John Ziegler.

Had Bettman taken courses in the humanities back then, instead of law, he might have learned that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.

These days, every time you turn on a playoff telecast, you get to see Bettman as he travels from coast to coast telling everyone who will listen what a wonderful job he has done.

In Canada, we know this because we get to see the playoffs on accessible television.

In the United States, no matter how Bettman tries to paint it, the status of hockey is abysmal.

Thanks to Bettman, only a small percentage of Americans can watch the playoffs. And thanks to Bettman, fewer still have any desire to do so.

In Canada, we fill the rinks, thereby allowing Bettman to say that the league is setting attendance records.

What he doesn't tell you is that knowledgeable people laugh when attendance is announced in American buildings; that many tickets are either given away outright or sold for a nominal fee; and that it is Canadian attendance which is propping up the league.

STANDS FULL IN CANADA

In Calgary, a section of the seating area that had been closed for years was reopened this year -- and sold out like the rest of the building. The mercurial fans of the Montreal Canadiens bought every available ticket to see their team. In Ottawa, thanks to the Senators' fine regular-season performance, attendance never has been higher.

For the most part, Bettman has destroyed the game in the U.S. and he did it by repeating one of the most disastrous mistakes of Ziegler.

Hockey was starting to attract a U.S. following in the 1980s, in no small part because it got involved with ESPN on the ground floor. The network was relatively new and as it grew, hockey grew with it.

But Ziegler then decided to part ways with ESPN to go to SportsChannel America which simply was not available in most U.S. homes. Many a hockey historian will contend that no decision in history did more to harm the NHL's evolution than that one.

Eventually, the NHL got back onto ESPN and was coming along nicely -- until Bettman staged his unnecessary season-long lockout, took the game out of the public's view for a year, and in the process, lost the ESPN contract.

Now, the NHL is on OLN.

The average ratings for the season were 0.2, which, for those of you not arithmetically inclined, means OLN gets one viewer out of every 500. That's a 60% drop from the last season on ESPN.

The game is back and, thanks to new rules which Bettman finally allowed to be imposed after a decade of screaming from fans and media, is better than ever.

But in the U.S., it's virtually dead.

Thanks to Bettman's TV policy, hockey no longer can be considered one of the top four sports in the U.S. It may not be in the top dozen.

And without the ESPN contract, the sport doesn't get exposure to youngsters who are forming their sports loyalties. They're busy watching poker, college basketball and extreme sports.

As respected Washington Post columnist Tony Kornheiser wrote recently, "Hockey is so dead in America, the players may as well still be locked out."

His conclusion was, "Hockey didn't just lose last season. It appears to have lost its place."
http://ottsun.canoe.ca/Sports/Hockey/2006/05/11/1574034-sun.html