Lynah Attendance

[scoop85]

While we may have attendance woes, we're far from the only ones. On the College Hockey subreddit people were saying Aggannis was empty for the Maine-BU game.

[BearLover]

Tonight's listed attendance was 2,605. I asked ChatGPT to compile  all other games from Cornell men's hockey history with attendance this small. All it  could find were four intercession games from early January 2025 and 2026. That is to say, there is no record of a game that took place while school was in session that was as poorly attended as tonight's.

History was made tonight!

[The Rancor]

While we may have attendance woes, we're far from the only ones. On the College Hockey subreddit people were saying Aggannis was empty for the Maine-BU game.

it made Lynah seem full, in comparison.

[chimpfood]

I have a hard time believing Cornell students are trying to boycott Cornell hockey to send a message. Trust me when I say that die hard protestors and the die hard hockey fans have no overlap. I think the real factor here is an opponent that nobody has heard of and no frat parties means more smaller friend group parties, I.e. more people are invited to one, not less. Next weekend we'll see how we do with the band back and no Halloween.

[Dafatone]

I have a hard time believing Cornell students are trying to boycott Cornell hockey to send a message. Trust me when I say that die hard protestors and the die hard hockey fans have no overlap. I think the real factor here is an opponent that nobody has heard of and no frat parties means more smaller friend group parties, I.e. more people are invited to one, not less. Next weekend we'll see how we do with the band back and no Halloween.

Students, probably not so much.

The other side of the rink? Could be. But Halloween a big factor too.

[ugarte]

Blaming Halloween is guessing at a reason. Attendance is objectively consistently lower than it was for most of us on here during our days in Ithaca. Sign of the times more than a reflection of the program imo.

[Trotsky]

Maybe they're just smarter than we were.

I don't really believe they're making art, making love, or making subversive political trouble instead of watching jocks sweat, but we can dream.

[Trotsky]

Trust me when I say that die hard protestors and the die hard hockey fans have no overlap.

I'd trust you a lot more if I didn't know you were wrong.

[Trotsky]

no just in general 😭 i'm pretty acutely aware of people who are more impressive than i am (low bar but still) and cold-emailing is deeply deeply terrifying

No one is impressive.

Everyone is faking.

The irony of that being on an internet forum is delightful.

I think it's the opposite of ironic.  Whatever that is.  "Congruent"?  "Obvious"?

Thanks, Alanis.

It's like ray-AY-ain...

[pjd8]

I have a hard time believing Cornell students are trying to boycott Cornell hockey to send a message. Trust me when I say that die hard protestors and the die hard hockey fans have no overlap. I think the real factor here is an opponent that nobody has heard of and no frat parties means more smaller friend group parties, I.e. more people are invited to one, not less. Next weekend we'll see how we do with the band back and no Halloween.

Who said students are boycotting Cornell hockey?

Choosing to do something else with your evening because you think it might be more fun is hardly a boycott move.

[BearLover]

To me, the townie attendance was more shocking than the student attendance. I expect student attendance to be bad nowadays, but the townie attendance was the literal worst I have ever seen it. Both sides of the rink were at least 60% empty, but a barren townie side was something I had never seen before.

Anyway, could have made a difference in the close game yesterday. We weren't in the goalie's head at all.

[Al DeFlorio]

Blaming Halloween is guessing at a reason. Attendance is objectively consistently lower than it was for most of us on here during our days in Ithaca. Sign of the times more than a reflection of the program imo.

And not something to be cried over five times a night. 

[BearLover]

I have a hard time believing Cornell students are trying to boycott Cornell hockey to send a message. Trust me when I say that die hard protestors and the die hard hockey fans have no overlap. I think the real factor here is an opponent that nobody has heard of and no frat parties means more smaller friend group parties, I.e. more people are invited to one, not less. Next weekend we'll see how we do with the band back and no Halloween.

I'm not as worried about the die hard hockey fans as I am about the casual hockey fans. I would have thought Cornell's negative publicity wouldn't affect attendance and in fact the ban on frat parties would help attendance, but I guess I was wrong. The fact both student and townie attendance was historically bad suggests a general lack of interest for one reason or another. As noted above, I don't buy Halloween as a reason; attendance is usually strong this weekend. 

My main question at this point is whether anyone in the AD or hockey program is aware of the massive attendance problem and trying to do something about it. I don't know whose decision it was to bring back the ticket line, and while I was skeptical it would work I was happy they were trying new things. I guess it didn't help ticket sales at all though.

[LGR14]

I have a hard time believing Cornell students are trying to boycott Cornell hockey to send a message. Trust me when I say that die hard protestors and the die hard hockey fans have no overlap. I think the real factor here is an opponent that nobody has heard of and no frat parties means more smaller friend group parties, I.e. more people are invited to one, not less. Next weekend we'll see how we do with the band back and no Halloween.

I'm not as worried about the die hard hockey fans as I am about the casual hockey fans. I would have thought Cornell's negative publicity wouldn't affect attendance and in fact the ban on frat parties would help attendance, but I guess I was wrong. The fact both student and townie attendance was historically bad suggests a general lack of interest for one reason or another. As noted above, I don't buy Halloween as a reason; attendance is usually strong this weekend. 

My main question at this point is whether anyone in the AD or hockey program is aware of the massive attendance problem and trying to do something about it. I don't know whose decision it was to bring back the ticket line, and while I was skeptical it would work I was happy they were trying new things. I guess it didn't help ticket sales at all though.

A few things. 

1.  Look at the tickets available for Quinnipiac.  It's G, H, J, and O.  The townie sections look to be mostly filled in otherwise.  I assume I don't have access to student section tickets, so impossible to figure out what availability looks like.  There must be a ton open in D.

2.  Tickets are $25.  While not "expensive" per se, I believe tickets were half that 15 years ago.  You can go to NHL games for less.  The game against BU is $39, by the way. 

3.  If most of the issue this weekend was townie attendance, then I'm inclined to believe that it will rebound given Halloween, subject to the pricing issues above.  Although I can corroborate that the Halloween games were always well attended 2011-2014.  So I don't think that's a full explanation. 

4.  I don't know how you improve student attendance.  There's no scarcity anymore.  And anyone who went to their first games this weekend probably wasn't impressed.   

[BearLover]

I have a hard time believing Cornell students are trying to boycott Cornell hockey to send a message. Trust me when I say that die hard protestors and the die hard hockey fans have no overlap. I think the real factor here is an opponent that nobody has heard of and no frat parties means more smaller friend group parties, I.e. more people are invited to one, not less. Next weekend we'll see how we do with the band back and no Halloween.

I'm not as worried about the die hard hockey fans as I am about the casual hockey fans. I would have thought Cornell's negative publicity wouldn't affect attendance and in fact the ban on frat parties would help attendance, but I guess I was wrong. The fact both student and townie attendance was historically bad suggests a general lack of interest for one reason or another. As noted above, I don't buy Halloween as a reason; attendance is usually strong this weekend. 

My main question at this point is whether anyone in the AD or hockey program is aware of the massive attendance problem and trying to do something about it. I don't know whose decision it was to bring back the ticket line, and while I was skeptical it would work I was happy they were trying new things. I guess it didn't help ticket sales at all though.

A few things. 

1.  Look at the tickets available for Quinnipiac.  It's G, H, J, and O.  The townie sections look to be mostly filled in otherwise.  I assume I don't have access to student section tickets, so impossible to figure out what availability looks like.  There must be a ton open in D.

2.  Tickets are $25.  While not "expensive" per se, I believe tickets were half that 15 years ago.  You can go to NHL games for less.  The game against BU is $39, by the way. 

3.  If most of the issue this weekend was townie attendance, then I'm inclined to believe that it will rebound given Halloween, subject to the pricing issues above.  Although I can corroborate that the Halloween games were always well attended 2011-2014.  So I don't think that's a full explanation. 

4.  I don't know how you improve student attendance.  There's no scarcity anymore.  And anyone who went to their first games this weekend probably wasn't impressed.   

I mostly agree with this. Townie tickets are too expensive if the goal is increasing attendance, which it should be. Unfortunately, whoever prices tickets seems to only care about maximizing revenue.

On the student side, the bottom fell out once the scarcity was gone. It used to be that you needed season tickets to attend the games. Now, why get season tickets?

I would support decreasing the capacity of Lynah by replacing the benches with seats on the townie side. We can no longer fill a 4,267 person rink, so at least this creates more scarcity. And the townies would be more likely to show up if they could sit in a real seat.