Perhaps the most unsurprising thing to come out of the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday was that it drew the smallest attendance of the season so far at Rogers Arena. After all, it was a battle of the two last-place teams in their respective conferences on a gloomy Thursday night.

Officially, the announced crowd count was 18,606. That was 23 fewer than took in the team’s 4-1 win over the Minnesota Wild last Saturday.

And as it was again Thursday, it has become painfully obvious through 15 home dates that the Canucks aren’t giving the paying customer much to cheer about. The team is an appalling 4-10-1 on home ice this season.

Twice this season, the Canucks have played to crowds over 19,000. The largest attendance – 19,012 – came in the team’s October 9th season opener against Calgary. The second largest total was drawn by North Vancouver’s Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks. An announced crowd of 19,002 attended that game on November 5th.

Officially, the Canucks have listed four of their 15 games as sellouts. The October 13th game against St. Louis (18,952) and the much-anticipated return of JT Miller with the New York Rangers (18,919) both played to capacity crowds.

Otherwise, 11 of the 15 home games have fallen below the threshold to be considered a sold-out building. Now, it should be noted that the variance between the largest crowd and the smallest crowd so far is just 406. But again, all of these figures are ‘announced’ crowds officially recorded by the National Hockey League.

It’s clear for anyone attending games to see growing numbers of unused seats as the losses mount and apathy appears to be taking hold. Tickets on resale markets are listed well below face value on game days, and anecdotally, there are growing reports of ticket holders having trouble simply giving good seats away these days. We’ve also seen the Canucks dangling markedly discounted student incentives in an attempt to lure a younger crowd into the building.

The club’s home ice record has been a concern for far too long now. Dating back to the start of the 2024-25 NHL season, the Canucks are 21-26-9 (21 victories in 56 games) in home games. The 21 wins are tied with San Jose for last in the NHL over that time. By comparison, Carolina has a league-leading 41 home victories over that span.

Through it all, though, according to hockey-reference.com, the Canucks still rank fifth in the league in average attendance per game (18,779) and have played to 99.3% capacity at Rogers Arena so far this season. Only Montreal, Florida, Detroit, and Tampa Bay draw larger crowds on average. And of the top six teams in the league by average crowd count, the Canucks are the only club in the Western Conference on that list.

But all of this will be put to the test over the second half of the season. The Canucks are out on the road now until Christmas. Their next home games are December 27th against the San Jose Sharks, December 30th versus the Philadelphia Flyers, January 2nd against the Seattle Kraken, followed by the Boston Bruins the next night on January 3rd. Between the holiday season, the star power of local boy Macklin Celebrini, the return of Rick Tocchet with the Flyers and another Original Six franchise making its lone visit of the season, there are enough storylines there to generate some interest.

The real challenge for the Canucks comes beyond that. The way the schedule works, the Canucks have a pair of eight-game homestands still to come, and they finish their season with a staggering 22 of 35 games on home ice. That’s a lot of seats to fill, and it’s becoming more apparent by the day that the main reason to watch this team – captain Quinn Hughes – may no longer ply his trade in Vancouver by the time the stretch drive rolls around.

Now, the Canucks will benefit from having the Toronto Maple Leafs roll into Rogers Arena in January, along with living legends Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. So there are still some marquee names that will draw crowds.

But let’s be clear that the deeper this season goes, fewer and fewer will be showing up to see – and support – the home team. So what will the building look and feel like when Ottawa, Nashville, St. Louis, and Seattle come calling over a two-week span in the middle of March?

Announced crowds may remain strong for the remainder of the schedule due simply to the fact that most of the tickets are already sold as part of season memberships. But as we’ve witnessed lately and are sure to see more of, the truest measure of interest in the team will be judged by the actual number of people in the seats.

If it’s hard for many to justify the expense of time and money now, just wait until the late stages of this season that has already gone sideways. By the time March and April roll around, forget good seats – there will likely be good rows and even entire sections available to watch whatever it is the Canucks are putting on the ice.

The official attendance numbers released by the hockey team are one thing. The growing number of empty seats tells an entirely different story.

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