{"id":555616,"date":"2026-04-18T23:33:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T23:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/555616\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T23:33:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T23:33:49","slug":"blackhawks-finished-among-top-in-attendance-despite-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/555616\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackhawks finished among top in attendance despite record"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Despite their fourth straight last place finish, the Chicago Blackhawks were still among the top in NHL attendance in 2025-2026. They drew <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/friv\/attendance.cgi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">776,908<\/a> fans at the United Center, the fifth-most in the NHL, and averaged 18,949 fans per home game. Per the Chicago Sun Times Blackhawks beat <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BenPopeCST\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ben Pope<\/a>, they sold out 18 games last season.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Blackhawks attendance: 20,397<\/p>\n<p>Hawks finish out the season with their 18th sellout. This crowd is LOUD, too. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/wb9hPpjPSJ\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/wb9hPpjPSJ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BenPopeCST\/status\/2044607645017870597?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">April 16, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Blackhawks were still well attended.<br \/>\n<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-155939\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%202560%201706'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1706\" data-lazy- data-lazy- data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Chicago-Blackhawks-3-0-scaled.jpg\"\/>Dec 10, 2025; Chicago, Illinois, USA; The Chicago Blackhawks celebrate their win against the New York Rangers at United Center. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>One can argue there is a bit of a mislead with those attendance numbers. The United Center\u2019s non-standing-room seating capacity is 19,717, the fourth-highest in the league. The capacity percentage for the season was 96.1%, which was around middle of the road in the NHL. The point being, the Blackhawks drew more fans than most teams because they could hold more, but they filled the arena to capacity or above only a handful of times.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, the fact that the Blackhawks could still draw that many people after being more than a decade removed from playoff success shows that the games are still a place people like to go.\u00a0There are plenty of bad teams that drew far fewer fans, both in total and in capacity percentage terms, than the Blackhawks. Just because the amphitheater is big does not mean it will draw (X) people. Many recall 20 years ago, when the United Center was lucky to get 16,000 spectators inside. The Blackhawks drew under 17,000 fans only five times, mostly on weeknights against non-rival or premier matchups.<\/p>\n<p>All things considered, it was a well-attended season for the Blackhawks. While the results were not there in terms of wins, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicitysports.com\/chicago-blackhawks-connor-bedard-terse-contract-nhl\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">patience is waning thin<\/a>, there were some things to watch with Connor Bedard and young prospects. The team\u2019s centennial anniversary likely also helped draw some people to the games. With all that being said, it\u2019s time for the Blackhawks to win because the fans are more than ready for that again.<\/p>\n<p>                    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1667\" height=\"1111\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201667%201111'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" alt=\"Chicago Blackhawks\u2019 Connor Bedard give terse response to contract question\" class=\"post-image\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Mason-West.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                        Chicago Blackhawks\u2019 Connor Bedard give terse response to contract question<br \/>\n                        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicitysports.com\/chicago-blackhawks-connor-bedard-terse-contract-nhl\/\" class=\"read-more\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\tFor More Great Chicago Sports Content<\/p>\n<p>        <a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLGY9QowgMXbAg?hl=en-US&amp;gl=US&amp;ceid=US%3Aen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"349\" height=\"108\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20349%20108'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/image-10.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Get the latest Chicago sports news, analysis, and breaking stories on the Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks, Cubs, White Sox, Sky, and more! Tap the star to add us to your favorites on <a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLGY9QowgMXbAg?hl=en-US&amp;gl=US&amp;ceid=US%3Aen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google News<\/a>, so you never miss a story on your favorite Chicago teams.<\/p>\n<p>Follow us on Twitter at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/chicitysports23\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@chicitysports23<\/a> for more great content. We appreciate you taking time to read our articles. To interact more with our community and keep up to date on the latest in Chicago sports news, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/chicagosports247\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">JOIN OUR FREE FACEBOOK GROUP by CLICKING HERE <\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite their fourth straight last place finish, the Chicago Blackhawks were still among the top in NHL attendance&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5115],"tags":[521,37,96,5263,5,4,45022,7731],"class_list":{"0":"post-555616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-blackhawks","8":"tag-blackhawks","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","11":"tag-chicagoblackhawks","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-nhl-attendance","15":"tag-united-center"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116428331181904231","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}