Photo: Selbstgemacht [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/d6931850-98a3-4c95-aa9a-b17772b32e60.jpeg] Photo: Selbstgemacht Kölner Haie will break its own single-season attendance record for a European club, according to a press release from the German club on Friday. The team’s final DEL regular-season game on Friday night against the Fischtown Pinguins from Bremerhaven is already sold out at Lanxess Arena, which has a capacity of 18,500 for hockey. That would bring the team’s total to 463,543 over 26 home games – an average of 17,829. That breaks the record that the club set last season by almost a thousand fans per game. According to the figures published at hockey-reference.com [https://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/attendance.cgi] on March 7, Die Haie’s attendance this season is greater than the NHL’s regular-season average and higher than 14 of the league’s 32 teams. “We are very grateful for the special loyalty and support of our fans – they made this new record possible,” said club managing director Philipp Walter [https://www.haie.de/news/kec-mit-neuem-europaeischen-zuschauerrekord-marke-aus-dem-vergangenen-jahr-verbessert/]. “We are pleased that the cogs of our marketing and digitization strategy are working so well together.” Though meaningless in the standings, Friday’s game will be a warm-up for the playoffs, as Die Haie and Bremerhaven will finish sixth and third respectively in the standings, and will face each other in the quarterfinals. Kölner Haie set a new European single-season attendance record last season [https://thehockeynews.com/international/k%C3%B6lner-haie-tops-european-clubs-in-attendance] with 16,993 fans per home game. That ended the streak of Swiss club SC Bern, which had led European hockey clubs in attendance for 21 consecutive seasons – not counting the pandemic-affected 2020-21 season, where attendance was severely limited everywhere. Bern’s top-drawing season was 2016-17 at 16,399, which was the record until last season. Kölner Haie tops European clubs in attendance [https://images.saymedia-content.com/.image/MjA1NDYwMDEzNzY0ODQ3MTAy/a-full-lanxess-arena-in-cologne-germany.jpg] Kölner Haie tops European clubs in attendance The German club returns to the top after SC Bern's 21-year reign [https://thehockeynews.com/international/k%C3%B6lner-haie-tops-european-clubs-in-attendance] According to the press release, Germany’s DEL will also set a new attendance record for European leagues this season with more than 2.8 million fans, breaking the record the league set last season with 2.61 million. An exact figure won’t be available until the regular season concludes after Friday’s full slate of games. Elsewhere in Europe, according to a tweet from the club on Wednesday, Sparta Prague broke its own Czech Extraliga attendance record this season by more than a thousand per game with an average of 12,804. What other attendance records will fall this season? The Alliance of European Hockey Clubs usually releases its Europe-wide attendance report in mid March, once all of the major leagues have completed their regular seasons. The reports from 2001-02 through 2023-24 can be found here. [https://www.eurohockeyclubs.com/attendance] 2026 Olympics will see best German team ever [https://images.saymedia-content.com/.image/MjA4MzU2NjQxMTc3ODcxODEz/usatsi_15511381.jpg] 2026 Olympics will see best German team ever The Germans have had some very good results internationally in recent years, including a silver medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics and another silver at the 2023 IIHF World Championship. They’ve had some very good young talent to work with but they haven’t had a chance to put all of their best players together on one team since the 2010 Winter Olympics. They’ve improved a lot since then. In fact, it’s no stretch to say the 2026 Winter Olympics will feature the greatest German ice hockey team ever assembled. [https://thehockeynews.com/international/latest-news/2026-olympics-will-see-best-german-team-ever]
