Second Half Attendance Boost: Part II

Not much news happening today, so I figured I would run the numbers on the second half attendance boost again. I plan to do this every other Sunday. You can view the first part here, and lets remember that for my sanity, the "halfway" point for each team was put at 20 home games. Note: Attendance figures used are updated through Saturday, Feb. 21st.

First, the all-mighty chart:



As you can see, I added a new column this time around, which will show the difference since I last updated the figures. Only one team has dipped since then, the St. Louis Blues; who were joined by the league as a whole cooling off in the past 10 days. The biggest gainers would be Florida, Boston, and Carolina. Florida pulled off a great feat in the past week and a half; going from being down in the second half to being up over 10%. Boston continued its second-half sellout streak, as they have sold out all 7 games since the start of the second "half," while Carolina undoubtedly benefited from Glen Wesley night and have sold out 3 of their last 4 games.

The good news going forward is that the few teams that haven't benefited from the second half boost yet seem to be gaining ground as noted by the positive green boxes at the bottom of the table.

Moving on...

The Edmonton Oilers did a classy thing yesterday for Hockey Day in Canada, bringing 16 kids and (I'm assuming, although it wasn't mentioned) their families from a town 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle to Rexall Place and really giving them the VIP treatment, as you can see here (4:30 mark):



That is how you market the game, U.S. clubs. I understand its Canada and those kids are already hockey fans, but I bet at least a couple if not more will now become Oilers fans because of the experience.

And finally, for your Sunday viewing pleasure, Coach's Corner with Ron MacLean and Don Cherry:



More (maybe) later.