If You Skate, They Will Come: NHL Sets Attendance Mark Third Consecutive Season
Friday, April 18, 2025 at 02:17PM By Barry Janoff
April 18, 2025: En route to the Stanley Cup Playoffs and Final, the NHL said it set an attendance mark during the 2024-25 season, surpassing the 23-million mark for the first time in league history.
The league said games on its final days before the post-season pushed total attendance for the full, 1,312-game regular season to 23,014,458, representing 96.9% of capacity.
This marks the third consecutive regular season the NHL has set a total attendance record, following 2022-23 (22,436,532) and 2023-24 (22,873,142).
The NHL said the “epic pursuit of the NHL career goals record by Alex Ovechkin" to pass Wayne Gretzky in The GR8 Chase was among the key factors.
The record attendance for the regular season does not include the 4 Nations Face-Off.
Total attendance for that tournament's seven games in February — four in Montreal Bell Centre, three in TD Garden in Boston — was 135,977, an average of 19,425 per game.
The Montreal Canadiens led all clubs in total attendance this past season, with sellout crowds of 21,105 in Bell Centre for each of their 41 home dates for a total of 865,305.
Regular-season games were played in 36 venues.
In addition to the 32 NHL home arenas, there was the Winter Classic in host Wrigley Field in Chicago; Stadium Series venue Ohio Stadium in Columbus; and Global Series sites O2 Arena in Prague, Czechia and Nokia Arena in Tampere, Finland.
A crowd of 94,751, the second-largest gathering in NHL history, were in Ohio Stadium in Columbus for the 2025 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series between the Columbus Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings on March 1.
The all-time single-game NHL mark is 104,173 at the 2014 Winter Classic in Michigan Stadium between the Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs.
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