The recent match between the Minnesota Golden Gophers and the St. Cloud State Huskies at the Fargo Regional set a new attendance record. The game, held at the south Fargo arena, saw 5,400 fans pack into the stadium to witness an intense and thrilling match between two of college hockey's top teams.
This was a significant increase from the previous record set in 2015 when North Dakota played against St. Cloud State in the same regional, which attracted 5,307 fans to attend.
The south Fargo arena has been open since 2008 and this is only its second time hosting such an event. With over five thousand people attending this most recent game alone, it is clear that hockey remains a popular sport among both student athletes and fans alike.
In response to breaking this record for attendance numbers, University of Minnesota head coach Bob Motzko stated: "It's great for our sport...It's just unbelievable what our state does with college hockey."
These sentiments were echoed by his counterpart Brett Larson who said: "I think that's why we have these regionals here because it is such a hotbed of college hockey...When you get two good teams like tonight playing each other in front of these kind of crowds in March Madness type games — it doesn't get any better than that."
With such high levels of excitement surrounding these events, it seems likely that more records will continue to be broken well into future seasons.