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NHL Attendance Rankings and Volatility - Uh, Downward

March 30, 2010, 5:35 PM ET [ Comments]
Travis Yost
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
I've been perusing the NHL Attendance standings over the past twenty minutes, and have noticed that there is a ton of volatility acorss the board. You have the usual teams holding steady, but only a few teams have trended upwards, while the majority have dropped off.

You could look at it from a few different angles. First, attendance in general is going to be reactive to team performance, and there are a ton of teams that can't get out of their own way right now. Second, attendance isn't as "set" in some of the newer expansion areas(particularly the south), as opposed to Canadian teams that will almost always sell out - so when such Canadian teams are bad(CAL, EDM, TOR), the "draw" for them coming to town weakens. Of course, we can always point our finger at the economy.

In terms of % change from 2009 to 2010, the 30 teams stack up like this(Note, over 100% would mean over-selling tickets, mostly from standing room. Some teams do not have this). Teams 1-11 all had at least 100% capacity on average:

1. Blackhawks: -3.2% drop
2. Maple Leafs: -0.2% drop
3. Canucks: +1.0% rise
4. Wild: -1.1% drop
5. Penguins: -1.9% drop
6. Sharks: +0.4% rise
7. Flyers: -0.1% drop
8: Flames: EVEN
8: Oilers: EVEN
8: Canadiens: EVEN
8: Capitals: +3.1% rise
12: Rangers: -3.0% drop
13: Sabres: -0.1% drop
14: Bruins: +1.9% rise
15: Blues: +10.3% rise

16: Senators: -6.7% drop
17: Red Wings: -1.7% drop
18: Kings: +4.0% rise
19: Stars: -2.8% drop
20: Ducks: -11.1% drop
21: Predators: -0.4% drop
22: Devils: -2.5% drop
23: Blue Jackets: -1.4% drop
24: Hurricanes: -7.7% drop
25: Panthers: -2.6% drop
26: Lightning: -7.3% drop
27: Islanders: -6.8% drop
28: Avalanche: -9.3% drop
29: Thrashers: -6.0% drop
30: Coyotes: -18% drop

Below are the numbers for the 2010 season.
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