'Hawks Fans Attending in Hordes
By Matt Motyka in News on Dec 16, 2008 9:50PM
Here's a shocker: the Chicago Blackhawks rank first in attendance in the NHL. That's right, the team who has spent most of the past decade among the bottom five in fan turnout is now sitting atop the league. In fact, as recently as the 2006/7 season the 'Hawks ranked 29th out of 30 in attendance. Why the sudden turn around? The obvious answer is that the Blackhawks are finally playing good hockey. But Jay Blunk, senior VP of business operations for the team, also asserts that a “cultural change” has taken place, and hopes that this change will sustain attendance even if on-ice performance were to falter. While only time can tell if a cultural change has occurred, history tells us that Chicago has not been supportive of Blackhawks teams who have struggled. We here are Chicagoist have come up with a “Fan Dedication” metric that puts things in perspective.
Fan Dedication attempts to dissociate performance from attendance. Sure, you could glance at the year-to-year attendance figures and say that the Red Wings have the most dedicated fans, but it's easy to be a supporter when your team is perennially one of the best in the biz. We want to know which cities have real, tried and true fans, who come out no matter what. Fan Dedication accomplishes this by taking the difference between rank in attendance and rank in performance each season, and calculating the average over a selected time frame. So where does Chicago appear in the list?
Fan Dedication, Best to Worst (2000-present)
1. Montreal
2. Toronto
T3. Columbus
T3. Minnesota
5. NY Rangers
6. Tampa
7. Philadelphia
8. Los Angeles
9. Calgary
10. Vancouver
T11. Edmonton
T11. St. Louis
13. Ottawa
14. Florida
15. Buffalo
16. Atlanta
17. Dallas
18. Detroit
19. Chicago
20. Colorado
21. Pittsburgh
22. Washington
23. San Jose
24. Carolina
25. Phoenix
26. Anaheim
27. Nashville
28. Boston
29. NY Islanders
30. New Jersey
Nineteenth. Not the best showing but certainly not the worst, either (for shame New Jersey, for shame). Win or lose, let's show our boys a little love this season. And since today is officially Vote Blackhawks Day, you can start by sending them to the All-Star Game.