Lynah Attendance

[stereax]

Perhaps, on top of price and apathy, the elimination of intramural hockey, and rec skating has really hurt the student attendance. Anecdotal at best, but going for a rec skate and seeing all the banners, probably would spark some curiosity. Maybe Cornell needs a practice rink and to open up Lynah for more student activities.

trying to localize the problem to anything this specific when it's clear that there's a generational shift across the country in how college kids spend their time is a fool's errand. The people who would play intramural hockey and skate recreationally are the kids you need to market to the least. it's the warm weather kids with no preexisting hockey exposure the school needs to hook with a hard sell during orientation and a commitment to pricing the games to maximize attendance, not revenue.

Yup, all of this.

Although I would say you do need to do work informing cold weather kids that hockey is the sport at Cornell.  I came from staunch Islanders fandom and had no idea as an incoming student that college hockey existed, let alone that we were a perennial power.  I only learned about it through word of mouth.

We should put a third statue between Ezra and A.D. on the Arts Quad.  Dryden winning the trophy in 1967.

Tbqh I only figured it out when I mentioned getting into Cornell to BU Friend and he spent the next 20 minutes informing me how much my new team sucked 😂

You need to market to the freshmen, the sophomores. Make them understand that this not only exists, it is FUN for nerds.

[BearLover]

I asked ChatGPT to compile every home opener we played during Halloween weekend for which attendance data is available:
10/31/03 vs WMU (attendance 3,836)
10/29/04 vs Army (3,836)
10/28/05 vs Michigan State (3,836)
10/26/06 vs Robert Morris (4,004)
10/30/09 vs Niagara (4,267)
10/29/11 vs Mercyhurst (4,267)
10/31/14 vs Omaha (4,004)
10/31/15 vs Niagara (4,267)
10/27/17 vs Alabama-Huntsville (3,277)
10/26/18 vs Michigan State (3,840)
10/29/21 vs Alaska (3,198) [NOTE: COVID-restricted attendance]
10/27/23 vs Minnesota-Duluth (4,316)
10/30/26 vs Sacred Heart (2,754)

Bold: sellout
Italics: Halloween night

Notes: Before the 2006 season, Lynah capacity was expanded from 3,836 to 4,267.
The official box score for 10/27/23 denotes an over-capacity crowd.

As you can see, attendance during Halloween weekend has historically been very high. In particular, games on Halloween night have drawn very well. Last night's attendance sold many fewer tickets than any other Halloween weekend game in recent history. I.e., the fact it took place on Halloween weekend does not provide a satisfactory explanation as to why attendance was terrible. The number of empty seats last night was far worse than the listed attendance, with seemingly over half the rink empty, implying a true attendance of under 2,133. Still, last night looked quite fuller than tonight's attendance. We'll see the official attendance number when it's released, but it seemed that by the time we were midway through the third period, less than 35% of seats were full (attendance of 1,493). Notably, attendance was significantly worse than during the pandemic-era attendance restrictions.

Halloween weekend means nothing. Halloween on Monday has no influence on Friday or Saturday. The only dates that are meaningful are when Halloween is on a Friday or Saturday. So the number of these over the last 15-20 years is really too small to base any results upon.

I know this year I had to make a decision did I stay home and give out candy (I get up to 60-90 kids), or go to the game with my lights off at home, or go to the game and leave a bowl of candy out hoping that someone doesn't just empty the bowl. I chose to leave a bowl and there were still 6 Snickers left when I got home, SUCCESS! But I'm sure some townies stayed home as I would have if I had a small one that I had to take around.

So forget about all those games on a "Halloween weekend" (a term that I've never heard before, probably because it's meaningless). MSU on Friday 10/26/18 means nothing when Halloween is on Wednesday.

The reason people refer to "Halloween weekend" is that it's when all the Halloween parties happen for students. The premise is that they will therefore be too busy with other social activities to have time for hockey games. While this sounds reasonable in theory, the numbers don't bear this out.

I did flag in my post those games that took place on Halloween itself, and found those too showed no trend of lower attendance.

[BearLover]

Not that we shouldn't be able to fill in 4200 seats, but Lynah isn't alone.

https://onwardstate.com/2026/11/03/its-not-just-us-penn-state-footballs-attendance-issue-is-more-of-a-nationwide-issue/

It's certainly fair to point out that this trend is happening everywhere. Within men's college hockey, I've seen fans of several other teams complaining about it. The thing is, those other teams never had great atmospheres to begin with. So while Clarkson may be only getting 1,000 fans instead of 1,500, or Harvard may be getting 800 instead of 1,200, they're not losing as much as when Lynah goes from electric to half-empty. A packed Lynah is a major recruiting advantage and also arguably a major in-game advantage. It's also a wonderful thing that unites a disparate campus full of kids studying many different subjects from many different places, along with professors, staff, and townies. Lynah is one of the things that makes Cornell and its hockey program special. So I don't deny this is happening just as bad elsewhere, but it hurts us a lot more than it hurts them. And while it is true that this being a general trend indicates there may be less Cornell can do to stop it, I still maintain that getting an extra 500 people in a community of like 50,000 to attend a given hockey game should not be that hard.

I'm not sure if everyone here realizes/remembers that just 15 years ago, Lynah was like the Harvard game every single night.

[Al DeFlorio]

Not that we shouldn't be able to fill in 4200 seats, but Lynah isn't alone.

https://onwardstate.com/2026/11/03/its-not-just-us-penn-state-footballs-attendance-issue-is-more-of-a-nationwide-issue/

It's certainly fair to point out that this trend is happening everywhere. Within men's college hockey, I've seen fans of several other teams complaining about it. The thing is, those other teams never had great atmospheres to begin with. So while Clarkson may be only getting 1,000 fans instead of 1,500, or Harvard may be getting 800 instead of 1,200, they're not losing as much as when Lynah goes from electric to half-empty. A packed Lynah is a major recruiting advantage and also arguably a major in-game advantage. It's also a wonderful thing that unites a disparate campus full of kids studying many different subjects from many different places, along with professors, staff, and townies. Lynah is one of the things that makes Cornell and its hockey program special. So I don't deny this is happening just as bad elsewhere, but it hurts us a lot more than it hurts them. And while it is true that this being a general trend indicates there may be less Cornell can do to stop it, I still maintain that getting an extra 500 people in a community of like 50,000 to attend a given hockey game should not be that hard.

I'm not sure if everyone here realizes/remembers that just 15 years ago, Lynah was like the Harvard game every single night.

Times change.  The mature learn to deal with it.

[VIEWfromK]

there were still 6 Snickers left when I got home, SUCCESS!

I can help you out with those on Friday

[BearLover]

Not that we shouldn't be able to fill in 4200 seats, but Lynah isn't alone.

https://onwardstate.com/2026/11/03/its-not-just-us-penn-state-footballs-attendance-issue-is-more-of-a-nationwide-issue/

It's certainly fair to point out that this trend is happening everywhere. Within men's college hockey, I've seen fans of several other teams complaining about it. The thing is, those other teams never had great atmospheres to begin with. So while Clarkson may be only getting 1,000 fans instead of 1,500, or Harvard may be getting 800 instead of 1,200, they're not losing as much as when Lynah goes from electric to half-empty. A packed Lynah is a major recruiting advantage and also arguably a major in-game advantage. It's also a wonderful thing that unites a disparate campus full of kids studying many different subjects from many different places, along with professors, staff, and townies. Lynah is one of the things that makes Cornell and its hockey program special. So I don't deny this is happening just as bad elsewhere, but it hurts us a lot more than it hurts them. And while it is true that this being a general trend indicates there may be less Cornell can do to stop it, I still maintain that getting an extra 500 people in a community of like 50,000 to attend a given hockey game should not be that hard.

I'm not sure if everyone here realizes/remembers that just 15 years ago, Lynah was like the Harvard game every single night.

Times change.  The mature learn to deal with it.

You can choose to believe it's impossible to get 500 more people to buy tickets per game, but I think that's a loser mentality and also wrong.

[Al DeFlorio]

Not that we shouldn't be able to fill in 4200 seats, but Lynah isn't alone.

https://onwardstate.com/2026/11/03/its-not-just-us-penn-state-footballs-attendance-issue-is-more-of-a-nationwide-issue/

It's certainly fair to point out that this trend is happening everywhere. Within men's college hockey, I've seen fans of several other teams complaining about it. The thing is, those other teams never had great atmospheres to begin with. So while Clarkson may be only getting 1,000 fans instead of 1,500, or Harvard may be getting 800 instead of 1,200, they're not losing as much as when Lynah goes from electric to half-empty. A packed Lynah is a major recruiting advantage and also arguably a major in-game advantage. It's also a wonderful thing that unites a disparate campus full of kids studying many different subjects from many different places, along with professors, staff, and townies. Lynah is one of the things that makes Cornell and its hockey program special. So I don't deny this is happening just as bad elsewhere, but it hurts us a lot more than it hurts them. And while it is true that this being a general trend indicates there may be less Cornell can do to stop it, I still maintain that getting an extra 500 people in a community of like 50,000 to attend a given hockey game should not be that hard.

I'm not sure if everyone here realizes/remembers that just 15 years ago, Lynah was like the Harvard game every single night.

Times change.  The mature learn to deal with it.

You can choose to believe it's impossible to get 500 more people to buy tickets per game, but I think that's a loser mentality and also wrong.

Where did anyone here say it was "impossible?". It's just not something to whine about every day.

[Bluelightning]

I just saw some pics of Boston College home opener this past weekend vs Northeastern. Both schools in Boston. Not sure of what they are announcing for attendance, but it was worse than Lynah with actual real humans being in attendance . This happened in many sports venues everywhere and it seems to be the trend. We will see how we do going forward.

[chimpfood]

Sales look rough for this weekend too, oh well but don't expect things to look much better this week

[stereax]

I just saw some pics of Boston College home opener this past weekend vs Northeastern. Both schools in Boston. Not sure of what they are announcing for attendance, but it was worse than Lynah with actual real humans being in attendance . This happened in many sports venues everywhere and it seems to be the trend. We will see how we do going forward.

And consider on top of this, that Northeastern has no home rink and its fans must go to places like Conte, Agganis, etc to watch their team.

[stereax]

Sales look rough for this weekend too, oh well but don't expect things to look much better this week

Most of the empty seats are on the E-J bend, and then A and O. B, C, L, M, N close to sold out (or fully sold out, as in B). D is 3/4 sold.

[Trotsky]

Oh man, if the fancy people of Chestnut Hill heard you refer to their home as "Boston"...