Quote:
Originally Posted by dave1927p
No, what i meant was saying was that the orignal 6 teams were doing financially well in their markets so they decided to expand more into the states. Yes, those expansion teams took alot of time to get attendance to match the original six and make money as they were essentially a minor pro team playing in the big leagues.
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Which goes to show doubling the size of the league in one shot was questionable at best. Why not a more gradual expansion as done in the other sports league?
In any case here's the NHL's per game average attendance. Bars in green indicate seasons when new expansion teams began playing, and the light blue bar show when clubs from the defunt WHA began playing in the NHL. The red line shows the per game attendance the NHL reached in the year prior to its doubling, and just how long it took for the league to get back to that mark and finally surpass it on a sustained basis.