Associated Press reports that attendance was up 2.4% from the season before the lockout, with the NHL setting records for average and total fans. Games were played to 91.7% of capacity, drawing 20,854,169 fans for 1,230 regular-season games, for an average 16,955 per game. During the '03/'04 season, the NHL drew 20,356,199 fans, for an average of 16,650.

Now all we have to do is get casual fans to watch the game on TV, where ratings (for the national broadcasts on OLN) this season have been worse than ever.

~Adam

Yep, Adam, Barry was trotting this information yesterday on Sportcenter. Note: this afternoon about 3:15pm pst he said he is going to talk about the west matchups by the way. As far as the OLN, thats sad, but, a number of their games were not exactly big game matchups this past season, was my only complaint. Like for example St. Louis against fill in the blank. I mean when somebody else has the option of say a Flyers/Rangers game on another network, they aren't exactly going to be very interested in a St. Louis game.