<p>Some people were knocking Cornell hockey. Yes, Cornell may not have the best team in the country (we were ranked 3 for a while this year), but I can tell you that the games are a hell of a time. Lynah holds about 4,500, and it’s PACKED for every game. It’s a small rink, but everyone is right on top of the rink, and there’s all the cheers that EVERYONE knows. It’s a lot of fun. Cornell hockey can’t be beat in terms of having a good time at the game. </p>
<p>[url=<a href=“ELynah.com”>ELynah.com]ELynah.com[/url</a>]
Knock yourself out. Everyone knows all of those cheers.</p>
<p>I was there last time they sold out Madison Square Garden, and I will be there next time.</p>
<p>I have to say though, the traditional chants about how lame BU is have a better ring to them when they aren’t slaughtering us.</p>
<p>"No, I don’t think they’re correlated. Lots of top academic schools don’t give a hoot about hockey. And lots of top hockey schools don’t give a hoot about academics. "</p>
<p>I meant correlation of “best in hockey” with “hockey is a big deal there”, without the academics angle.</p>
<p>Good for Cornell. 4,000+ is not bad. That ranks it #19 in the country in average home attendance. Michigan ranks # 5 with a 6,660+ average. Colorado College is #4 with 6,932. Minnesota is #3 with 9,943. North Dakota is #2 with 11,709. And Wisconsin is #1 with a whopping 14,133. For a combination of academics and hockey, I’d say Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. With a tilt towards academics, I’d say Cornell and Michigan (pretty much tied for #1), followed by Wisconsin. Minnesota’s in the mix.</p>
<p>In attendance, by the way, Harvard ranks #34, with an average of 2,381—a step behind Michigan Tech, Northern Michigan, Alaska-Fairbanks, and UMass-Lowell. They do sometimes have good teams and are competitive in their league (that would be the “Ivy” league to you). But I’m not sure hockey is as big a deal there as at a lot of other schools.</p>
<p>For comparison purposes, Cornell ranks below Dartmouth (a much smaller school) in hockey attendance. Also behind Ohio State, Minnesota State-Mankato, Minnesota-Duluth, and UMass-Amherst. All decent hockey schools, but hardly the elite of the hockey world.</p>
<p>I’d look at Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.</p>
<p>Michigan 9
Denver 7
North Dakota 7
Wisconsin 6
Boston University 5
Minnesota 5
Boston College 3
Michigan State 3
Lake Superior State3
Michigan Tech 3
Maine 2
Rensselaer 2
Cornell 2
Colorado College 2
Northern Michigan1
Harvard 1
Bowling Green 1</p>
<p>"Good for Cornell. 4,000+ is not bad. That ranks it #19 in the country in average home attendance. "</p>
<p>The problem arises due to this earlier quote:</p>
<p>“Lynah holds about 4,500, and it’s PACKED for every game”</p>
<p>They can’t have more attendance, because their rink is already filled to capacity. This has long been a problem there, people used to camp out and sleep overnight there to get tickets. I’m not sure why they never expanded it. However, on the positive side the combination of the small rink and the packed crowd makes for a particularly intense environment there.</p>
<p>Of course they could never have the attendance of Madison anyway, they have a much smaller student body and a much smaller surrounding community. But they could easily have much higher attendance , if only the rink could hold them.</p>
<p>By contrast, Thanksgiving 2007 Cornell played BU in Madison Square Garden, and they sold it out, attendance 18,200. This indicates that where the rink capacity and surrounding population size are not such constraints the inherent fan support for the program would indeed result in large attendance numbers.</p>