Last weekend would have been the first weekend of the 2020 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. I literally blocked out my calendar 6 months ago to make sure no one schedule anything over what could have been over 15 hours of hockey consumption. Without the playoffs, it would safe to say I had some spare time on my hands. So I made a Northwest Hockey Crossword for all the good people of this community.
This is not supposed to be easy and I will be rewarding the first completed and accurate crossword puzzle with a free t-shirt and hockey puck. Send completed & legible entries to John@NHLtoSeattle.com. Have fun!
Big-time interview with a big-time guest this week, as Sound of Hockey welcomes current Washington Capital and former San Jose Shark, Dallas Star, and Seattle Thunderbird, Brenden Dillon.
With “Dilly Dilly,” the guys discuss a variety of facets of his hockey career and how tough it was at times as he fought to achieve his dream of playing in the NHL. Dillon has a fascinating story of perseverance that you will not want to miss.
Also in this episode, Darren helps John and Andy understand what it means to be legit, and John tests Andy and Darren with a challenging round of Let’s Get Quizzical. The other segment this week is Weekly One-Timers.
Big-time interview with a big-time guest this week, as Sound of Hockey welcomes current Washington Capital and former San Jose Shark, Dallas Star, and Seattle Thunderbird, Brenden Dillon.
With “Dilly Dilly,” the guys discuss a variety of facets of his hockey career and how tough it was at times as he fought to achieve his dream of playing in the NHL. Dillon has a fascinating story of perseverance that you will not want to miss.
Also in this episode, Darren helps John and Andy understand what it means to be legit, and John tests Andy and Darren with a challenging round of Let’s Get Quizzical. The other segment this week is Weekly One-Timers.
Last Saturday, April 4th, would have been the last game of the season. That is when I would have taken a deep dive look into the annual attendance numbers across the NHL. As of now, we don’t know when the NHL could resume. I also seem to have a lot of time on my hands these days, so what could be a better time than now to take a look at NHL attendance up until the league hit the pause button?
League Wide Attendance
The league wide attendance has been relatively flat over the last 6 seasons and we saw no change to that trend this year.
Sellouts
Looking at the league wide % of games sold out, you can see that the sellout percentage is down 1% compared to all of last season. The league tends to get higher attendance toward the end of the season (no competition from football, playoff races, etc.) Therefore, I anticipate the sellout % to go up if the rest of the season were played per the original schedule.
Team by Team
Ok. This is where it gets fun. Winning sure does help attendance. While losing… losing can hurt a lot, especially year over year losing. Carolina’s growth got a big boost from the exciting Stanley Cup playoff run from last season. On the other side of the coin, the last few losing seasons has really hurt Ottawa, Minnesota, LA, Anaheim, and Edmonton. Of the bottom 6, only the San Jose Sharks were in the playoffs last year, but this season has been brutal, currently in last place in the Western Conference. Side Note: there are a lot of NHL teams that sellout every game which makes it pretty much impossible to increase attendance.
Let me know if you have any specific questions.
Bonus Content
Below is a team by team view of how many games were sold out and a line chart to compare vs. last year. Enjoy.
With all this spare time on my hands, I thought I would look at the historical decline of fighting in the NHL.
Fights by Season
If there are no more regular season games played this season, it will be the fewest # of fights in a season that the NHL has seen since the 1969-70 season. Keep in mind the 69-70 season had 12 teams and a total of 456 games compared to the 1082 games that were played this season.
% of games with at least one fight
Of course, this season has been paused and, if and when the season were to restart, it is unlikely that rest of the season is played out in its entirety. To get a more accurate look, we should look at the % of NHL games with at least one recorded fight.
As you can see from the graph above, this season 16% of the games played so far this season had a fight, which is relatively flat compared to last season.
Team and Player Breakdown
Below is an interactive tool to look over different seasons by team and players. Filter by season and select a team on the left to look at team detail on the right.
Ok, seriously, you’re going to love Sound of Hockey’s interview with Chicago Steel General Manager, Ryan Hardy.
Ryan has had a fascinating journey through hockey so far, leading him to his current role at the helm of one of the best teams in the USHL. So get comfortable in quarantine, and enjoy this in-depth conversation with a great hockey personality.
Also in this episode, Andy gives a WHL update, John gives an NHL Seattle update, and Darren makes a bunch of wisecracks, as per usual.
Segments in this episode include Goalie Gear Corner and Weekly One-Timers.
