What is the typical attendence for your school's ACHA hockey club? What can we do as individual organizations to increase attendence which will lead to improved organizations due to cash flow? Interestingly, I was surprised by the answer for NCAA D1 and D3. D1 ranges widely, but the median is around 2200 and for D3 it is around 333. Where are we at with this and what can we do to improve?

First of all, what is the size of the rinks? You can only squeeze so many people into some of the rinks, and if it isn't comfortable to watch a game, people won't come.

You have to get the support of your university/college, advertise to the students, give student discounts, special nights (Greek night, girls get in free night, local YMCA discount night, etc to get people in. Have contests between periods to keep everyone's interest.

Putting a good product on the ice would be a given.

Only one team this year that we've covered on the road has matched Missouri State's attenance and that was Central Oklahoma, who played its first games in team history to open the season. Lindenwood is second, but many fans were there to see Missouri State. Grand Valley State is third. Show SIUE 4th.

MSU averages 1000 fans a game, but it's because team officials promote the team and are given preferental treatment when it comes to scheduling games. Most are played at 7pm on Friday and Saturday at Jordan Valley Ice Park, not 12:30pm on a Saturday or 1pm on a Sunday. This gives a family a chance to have a night out as it does the students.

Other teams only had 50 to 100 in attendance. If you look at the times the games were played and sometimes you can tell how the arena treats the team as an after thought, then you will get an idea of why some teams attendance is low.

A lot of it deals with location as well. I know students who live on campus @ SIUE would have to drive at least 10 to 15 minutes to beautiful East Alton to watch us play. Do any of the teams bus students from campus to the rink?

I can tee off from a dorm at mo state and hit the rink with a 7 iron. Mo state has a large advantage as far as location goes.

Bradley has had a student bus for some games in the past. When that is done it has brought about 50 - 100 extra fans. It pays for the bus though. If you just contract a bus company to run a regular school bus. It hasn't been done on a consistent basis, so not sure how it would do over the long haul.