Men's Hockey Breaks NCAA Attendance Record
August 02, 2004 | Men's Hockey
For the 30th time in school history, including all six years of the Kohl Center era, Wisconsin men's hockey outdrew all other college hockey programs to lead the nation in attendance during 2003'04.
An average of 11,701 people attended Wisconsin's 23 home dates in 2003-04, including its three WCHA playoff contests against Alaska Anchorage. The 269,123 total fans who watched Badger hockey during the season eclipsed the previous NCAA mark of 267,375 fans set by Wisconsin during the 1998'99 season, the first for the Badgers in the Kohl Center. Wisconsin averaged 12,153 fans per game that season to set the NCAA per-game-average record.
The 2003'04 total does not include Wisconsin's exhibition contest against Riga 2000, a team made up of some of Latvia's top ice hockey players. The total does include three of Wisconsin's six all-time Kohl Center sellouts of 15,237 fans.
Wisconsin led the nation in attendance for 24 consescutive seasons from 1969'93 while the team skated at the Dane County Coliseum. The growth of other arenas around the country added capacity the Coliseum could not match, but the construction of the Kohl Center and its opening in 1998 allowed Wisconsin to reclaim the title as college hockey's attendance leader.
