From Bern to Berlin: Ice hockey is booming here

One thing in advance: There was a slight to significant increase in visitor numbers everywhere in the eleven most important leagues in Europe. The crowd is SC Bern, which has held its top position undisputed for years. But it's not just the defending champions from Switzerland who enjoy unbroken popularity with their average of 16.237 spectators per home game, the entire National League is doing better than any other competition on the old continent. An average of 7074 fans pass through the turnstiles in the Swiss ice rinks. DEL follows the Swiss league The DEL is similarly popular with its three big drawcards: Cologne, Berlin and Mannheim, which stand out from the rest of the league with their state-of-the-art multifunctional arenas and all report five-digit visitor numbers per match day. Overall, the highest German league has an average of 6523 spectators.

SKA St. Petersburg is a crowd puller in the Russian KHL. © ska.ru

The cross-border KHL from Russia, which is considered the second best ice hockey league in the world, and the Swedish SHL also exceed the 6000 mark. The traditional Russian club SKA St. Petersburg has the second highest average in all of Europe with 13.594, while Champions League winner Frölunda Indians (10.579) from Gothenburg, Sweden, is Scandinavia's clear number one. EBEL and AlpsHL with room for improvement The Erste Bank Eishockey Liga is in seventh place in the league rankings with an average of 3163 fans per game. With its average attendance of 2886, HC Bozen is just below this value and is in sixth place in the EBEL internal table. The Vienna Capitals (4899) can look forward to the largest number of visitors.

Significantly fewer tickets are sold in the Alps Hockey League. An average of 650 fans attend the games there. The most are in Feldkirch (1448), followed by Zell am See (1192) and Bruneck (1038). Val Gardena (741) is in seventh position, Vipiteno (616) and Ritten (576) follow in 12th and 13th place. The leagues at a glance (*): Pos Country League Audience average 1. Switzerland National League 7074 2. Germany OF 6523 3. Russia KHL 6486 4. Sweden SHL 6056 5. Czechia Extra league 5724 6. Finland League 4236 7. Austria EBEL 3163 8. Great Britain EIHL 3043 9. Slovakia Extra league 2379 10. France Magnus League 1940 11. Denmark Metal Ligaen 1632 12. Norway Get leagues 1626 13. JPN-KOR-RUS Asia League 919 14. Poland PHL 872 15. Belarus Extra league 833 16. AUT-ITA-SLO AlpsHL 650 17. Hungary-Romania Erste Liga 632 18. Kazakhstan Championship 598 The top ten clubs (*): Pos Name Country Audience average 1. SC Bern SUI 16.237 2. SKA St Petersburg RUS 13.594 3. Cologne Sharks GER 13.333 4. Polar Bears Berlin GER 12.901 5. Adler Mannheim GER 11.891 6. Dynamo Minsk BLR 10.666 7. Frölunda Indians Gothenburg SWE 10.579 8. Sparta Prague CZE 10.330 9. ZSC Lions Zurich SUI 9.349 10. Spartak Moscow RUS 8.913

* Data source: IIHF

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From Bern to Berlin: Ice hockey is booming here

All ice hockey leagues in Europe were suspended or ended early due to the Corona crisis. So time to take stock and take a look at the audience table. We show which leagues and which clubs have been particularly popular with fans in the past few months.

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