Warning bells are ringing this season with soaring electricity prices and soaring interest rates.
Will fans be able to afford to go to a hockey game?
The answer is that loyal hockey fans have found something else to save.
They stand faithfully and save the party.
However, I am amazed at how hockey has retained its hold on fans after the ever-lasting pandemic, which first forced fans onto TV sofas in the final round of 2019-20.
Then the cone was not allowed in and the entire playoff game was cancelled.
In the post-2020-21 season, the average audience in the SHL was sixteen (16!) people.
It was incomprehensible two years ago.
When Växjö lifted the SC Cup in the last final against Rögle, the official audience was only half.
Eight spectators.
I have to admit I almost forgot about the empty stalls in that last chain.
But I remember the matches started with a happy crowd from the restaurant in the stands, forced to go home after a while of playing, and stopped by strict restrictions.
Like a whole new world
State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell held his daily press conferences, the entire world shut down and there was no doubt that any audience would be allowed into SHL hockey.
Now like a whole new world.
Many believed that a long break would affect SHL fans, and that people would get used to the comfortable life of a TV sofa.
But audience numbers so far indicate the exact opposite.
It’s all about an audience rate similar to the 2018-2019 season, the last time the SHL winter ran completely unfettered.
Then the average was 5,827 people.
After this Tuesday night, the same number is 5735.
It’s surprisingly good.
We are now in the famous lull starting like this at the end of October and fighting our way through the dark month of November.
Then audience numbers start to rise in earnest over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Now we’ve got a full tour of possibly the worst crowd day of the week.
Granted, it’s a payday on Tuesday, but it’s still an odd game day and nothing like a Saturday afternoon or Saturday night.
Whoever came up with the idea to play hockey on Saturday should get a medal.
It was a great idea, although it is a classic match in mainly British football.
Beer and sports go hand in hand.
Now there has been a slight drop in audience numbers and ‘only’ 8,674 in Scandinavia where Frolonda met Prinas is not what we are used to in Gothenburg.
But I think a lot of people regret not seeing the goal celebration, when Frölunda won 5-3.
And seeing Ryan Lash score the first goal of the season on Power Play, he made it 2-0.
Yes, that was his number one goal in the entire season.
He then decided the match with his soul and 4-3 when Prenas took the lead.
It was 5-3 at the end when Jan Morsak sent the disc into an empty basket.
Downgraded by the board of directors this year
Nor was it a good answer from Breinas’ Finnish goalkeeper Vini Vivelenen, who had to stand up this evening, but at the same time was said to have asked to leave the Javel team.
A good figure of the audience and about 6000 people in Angelholm, when Bjorn Hellqvist was having a terrible evening when he returned to his “home”.
It was 7-3 on Skåne at the end of the evening’s big goal celebration.
Yes, the whole round was a celebration of goals and a lot of clear wins compared to the last round.
There was only one cross and it was at Örebro, where defender Philip Holm became the unexpected hero of the match in the penalty shootout as Örebro won 3-2 in the final.
This means Örebro retains the lead, with Vargestad behind and with the same scoreline after 4-1 at home against HV71.
Personally, I mostly watched Skellefteå at home against Växjö, as I thought the return of Oscar Muller and Joachim Lindstrom would reverse the negative trend.
they did not.
Växjö won 3-1 and Skellefteå lost its sixth game in a row.
What led to the Västerbottoms being cut this time was the record-breaking this year by goalkeeper Gustav Lindvall.
Växjö’s Eric Josephsson puts an ant towards the goal in the hope of equalizing in the attack area.
in best case scenario.
It is almost an exaggeration to speak of a puck disc, but the unfortunate Lindvall held the disc with his own stick.
It was as if he was frozen in ice, and his thoughts were elsewhere.
This kind of mistake always makes me think of Tommy Salo and the match against Belarus.
For Gustav Lindvall, this was forgotten and already buried in the next match.
Salo has never had this luxury.
SHL attendance record?
From 2011/12, when the average audience was 6,393.
But that’s largely due to the fact that both AIK and Djurgården were in the SHL and played a total of five derbies at the Globe – all with over 10,000 in the stands and two sold with 13,850.
It will be difficult.