For many years the National Hockey League was struggling to bring fans to their games. Due to such low attendance and salary caps, the National Hockey League decided to have a lockout in 2004-2005 which was the first ever season ending lockout in any sport. Since the lockout, attendance in the NHL slowly started to increase. This thesis looks at what factors affect attendance in the NHL since the lockout. Attendance was low before the lockout, but after the lockout attendance started to increase more and more every year. This thesis tests for what the NHL is doing right since the lockout so that they can continue to increase their attendance ratings even more. The research was taken from NHL.com, Versus. com, and ESPN.com. Data was found for all thirty NHL teams. A regression was used to test the data with the dependent variable being attendance. The independent variables are; goals scored, total points, winning percent, competitive balance, location, all-stars, games played, play-offs, weekend games, minor penalty minutes, and major penalty minutes. The regression found that four variables were significant in affecting attendance. These four variables were goals scored, location, minor penalty minutes, and major penalty minutes. This thesis proves that there are other factors besides game factors that affect attendance; however, the four game factors that affect attendance go along with the new rule changes that the NHL created after the lockout proving that the NHL is doing some of the right things to increase attendance in the NHL.
