European attendance ranking published

ZURICH – SC Bern and the Swiss National League A remain in first position in the International Ice Hockey Federation’s annual European attendance study.

Scroll down for the club and league rankings.

SC Bern, which eliminated regular-season winner ZSC Lions Zurich 4-0 in the quarter-finals yesterday, has another reason to celebrate. The club is in first place in Europe for the 15th consecutive time, averaging an attendance of 16,145 during the regular season.

The club from the Swiss capital is followed by two German club teams. Eisbaren Berlin moved up one place with 13,021 fans and Kolner Haie advanced from sixth to third place with 12,037 spectators per game. SKA St. Petersburg from Russia and Adler Mannheim from Germany remain in fourth and fifth place respectively with an average of 11,789 and 11,657, while Belarusian KHL team Dynamo Minsk fell from second to sixth place with 11,445 fans.

The same teams as last year hold places seven through nine (Finnish KHL team Jokerit Helsinki, the ZSC Lions Zurich from Switzerland and Frolunda Gothenburg from Sweden) while Germany’s Hamburg Freezers entered the top-10 at the expense of Slovan Bratislava from Slovakia.

Seven of the top-eight ranked teams are from cities that either held or will hold the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship between 2009 and 2020.

Several teams made some strong moves up the ranking. After earning promotion to the top league, the Malmo Redhawks improved from 29th to 17th place. Sparta Prague went up from 31st to 18th place and is now the only top-level team in the city after Slavia’s relegation and Lev’s withdrawal after a short stint in the KHL.

Dynamo Moscow progressed from 37th to 21st place thanks to the opening of the new Ice Palace that will co-host the 2016 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in May with St. Petersburg.

After a time-out due to financial trouble Spartak Moscow moved to the classic Luzhniki Sports Arena and has now entered the ranking in a strong position at 31st. Swiss club EHC Biel looks to have benefited greatly since playing in the newly-built Tissot Arena, shifting from 70th to 36th place, while Pirati Chomutov from the Czech Republic went up from 123rd to 66th after earning promotion to the top league.

The best-ranked club from a second-tier league is now Czech club HC Ceske Budejovice, 45th with an average of 5,492 fans.

The top-100 teams come from 18 different leagues in 14 countries: Austria, Belarus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Great Britain, Germany, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Norway, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland.

The Swiss National League A (NLA) remains the league with the highest average attendance in Europe with 7,026. That’s 3.9 per cent more than last season and it’s the first time a European league has averaged over 7,000 fans in the regular season, mainly thanks to Biel’s new arena and the good numbers of recently-promoted SCL Tigers Langnau.

Germany’s DEL remains in second place and had a 3.6 per-cent growth to 6,647 spectators followed by the Russian-based Kontinental Hockey League (6,303), the Swedish Hockey League (5,849), the Czech Extraliga (5,406), Finland’s Liiga (4,249), the Austrian-based EBEL (2,890), Great Britain’s EIHL (2,719) and Norway’s Get-ligaen (1,936).

The French Ligue Magnus completes the top-10 moving up one place at the expense of the Slovak Extraliga. The French league had a 6.3 per-cent increase and has grown its audience in recent years thanks to addition of teams from bigger cities such as Bordeaux and Lyon. Six of the top-10 European leagues had growing numbers.

The NHL remains the best-attended league in the world and currently averages 17,484 fans, a slight growth from last year, led by the Chicago Blackhawks (21,816), the Montreal Canadiens (21,288) and the Detroit Red Wings (20,027).

The American Hockey League follows in second place in North America (fifth globally) and increased its average attendance to 5,865.

The third-most watched hockey league in North America is the major junior league WHL with an average of 4,312 fans while another team from the Canadian junior leagues, the QMJHL’s Quebec Remparts, has the highest average in North America outside of the NHL with 13,741 fans.

The NCAA Men’s Division I, by far the most-followed college league, came in sixth place in North America with 3,432 fans led by the University of North Dakota – host of the upcoming 2016 IIHF Ice Hockey U18 World Championship in Grand Forks – with 11,774 spectators per game.

The Asia League with teams from Japan, Korea, China and the Russian island of Sakhalin averaged 940 fans in the regular season, which would rank it 13th among European countries. The China Dragon, which played most of its home games in Qiqihar and Beijing, were first with 1,526 spectators followed by the Nikko Ice Bucks from Japan with 1,351 fans.

MARTIN MERK

Notes: The regular season is still being played in North America and in Great Britain, numbers as of 11 March 2016. Kometa Brno is over capacity due to two outdoor games.

PICTURE: SC Bern goalie Jakub Stepanek and Cory Conacher defend against ZSC Lions Zurich forward Auston Matthews in the Swiss quarter-finals. SC Bern remains the best-attended hockey club in Europe and the NLA the European league with the highest average attendance. Photo: Marcel Bieri / Photopress