This is a list of

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

games with the highest attendance on record. All of the games on this list were held in stadiums designed for field sports such as

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

, gridiron football, and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

. Four of the "games" listed were actually doubleheaders, in which a single ticket provided admission to two games held back-to-back. The fixed-roof Ford Field in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

hosted one doubleheader and a single game, and another was held at the retractable-roof

Veltins-Arena Arena AufSchalke (), currently known as Veltins-Arena () for sponsorship reasons, is an indoor football stadium in Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It opened on 13 August 2001, as the new home ground for Bundesliga club FC ...

in Gelsenkirchen,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

(with the roof closed for that game); all other games on the list were held in open-air venues. Most of these games were staged as special events, and all but one were played in the 21st century. Attendance in the 30,000 range was once quite common for major international matches held outdoors in the 1940s and 50s in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

's Lenin Stadium. Figures of this type are still common in bandy, a relative of ice hockey played outdoors. The record for a Stanley Cup playoff game, as well as for an NHL game played in a teams' regular home stadium, is 28,183, which was set on April 23, 1996, at the Thunderdome during a

Tampa Bay Lightning The Tampa Bay Lightning (colloquially known as the Bolts) are a professional ice hockey team based in Tampa, Florida. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. They play th ...

–

Philadelphia Flyers The Philadelphia Flyers are a professional ice hockey team based in Philadelphia. The Flyers compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference. The team plays its home games in Well ...

game. A new record was set on December 11, 2010, when the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

's men's ice hockey team faced cross-state rival Michigan State in an event billed as " The Big Chill at the Big House". The game was played at Michigan's football venue,

Michigan Stadium Michigan Stadium, nicknamed "The Big House," is the football stadium for the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It is the largest stadium in the United States and the Western Hemisphere, the third largest stadium in the world, and the ...

in Ann Arbor, with a capacity of 109,901, as of the 2010 football season. Ultimately, a crowd announced by the University of Michigan as 113,411, at that time the largest in the stadium's history (including football), saw the homestanding Wolverines win 5–0. ''

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'', using a count of ticketed fans who actually entered the stadium instead of UM's figure of tickets sold, announced a final figure of 104,173.

Image gallery

File:The Big Chill 08.jpg, The Big Chill at the Big House, the highest ever attendance of an ice hockey game. File:Eroeffnungsspiel eishockey wm 2010.jpg, 2010 IIHF World Championship Opening Game File:The Cold War UofM v.s MSU.jpg, The Cold War, held November 6, 2001 at Spartan Stadium, had the highest ever attendance of an ice hockey game at that time. File:NHL_Winter_Classic_2008.jpg, The 2008 NHL Winter Classic has the fourth-highest ever attendance of an ice hockey game, and the second highest for a game in a professional league. File:2009 Winter Classic.jpg, The 2009 NHL Winter Classic, held at Wrigley Field. File:Tatze-derby.jpg, SCL Tigers versus SC Bern during the 100th match of the Tigers-Bern derby. File:Panorama of 2010 NHL Winter Classic.jpg, The 2010 NHL Winter Classic, held at Fenway Park. File:Talviklassikko 2011.jpg, Talviklassikko 2011, Helsinki, Finland

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Ice Hockey Games With Highest Attendance

Attendance Attendance is the concept of people, individually or as a group, appearing at a location for a previously scheduled event. Measuring attendance is a significant concern for many organizations, which can use such information to gauge the effectiven ...

Ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice h ...

Image gallery

See also

References