COLUMBUS, Ohio — The attendance at Thursday’s NHL game in Ottawa bordered on pathetic. In my 25 years of covering hockey, including the last 10 traveling regularly to NHL cities, the crowd of 11,465 that watched the Avalanche defeat the once-proud Senators 4-1 constituted the weakest home support I’ve ever seen.
This was Canada, where hockey rules. The national pastime is always a good time. But it felt like Sunrise, Fla., or Glendale, Ariz., where 12,000 isn’t abnormal in sunshine states at NHL arenas down the road from the nearest major city.
The Senators are averaging a league-low 12,132 fans at the Canadian Tire Center in Kanata, Ontario — some 17 miles east of downtown Ottawa — and capacity also is worst in the league at 63.