The NHL has reached a new all-time high in total attendance this season. According to NHL Public Relations, attendance reached 22,560,634 over 1,294 games played so far this season. This broke the record set by the league just last season (22,436,532).
These games were played at a 97% capacity as well with an average attendance of 17,434.8. If you remove Mullet Arena in Arizona, which averaged 4,600 over 80 games so far, the average attendance jumps to 18,432.
Attendance figures for this data were taken from all 32 home NHL arenas, plus the outdoor games (T-Mobile Park, MetLife Stadium, Commonwealth Stadium) and NHL Global Series games at Avicii Arena in Stockholm, Sweden.
Removing seasons impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic (2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22) and the lockout-shortened season (2012-13), when there were both fewer games total to attend and games with reduced capacity, the NHL has averaged over 20 million fans per season going back to the start of the millennium (2000-01).
This regular season feat can be extended further with 18 games remaining on the slate.
All but three teams this season averaged a capacity over 90.7% this season, according to Hockey Reference. Ten teams total were at 100% capacity or higher this season and 25 teams averaged 95.5% or better for capacity.
These healthy numbers include relatively recent expansion teams, the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken, who were both in the 100% or higher capacity category.
There is still one attendance record left to break, and that’s the season attendance including playoffs, which was also set last season (24,052,168). Matching last year’s attendance of 1,615,636 would be enough to reach the mark.
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