Damn, BB called it.
Was talking to someone at the game last night who said he was disappointed in the fans - I shared with him BB's insight and he didn't seem to care.
If I see him tonight I'll let him know about these other attendances.
That guy you talked to is a complete fool. The QFs next week, outside of a possible UML-BU series, will be awful as well, even at BC and ND. Historically, only when nontraditional teams host big-name opponents, or when teams hosting for the first few times, like UConn are the numbers good.
For reference, last year ND hosted UMass in the octofinals, and barely got 4K. UNH barely got 3,500. And those numbers were both....massaged, to say the least. BU's number last night actually was true, the place as really only about 30% full if that. Most schools that are pretty guaranteed to host a first round or QF series will include the tickets for those with the season ticket package, so the attendance numbers they announce can include all of those as "tickets distributed" when in reality many of those people don't show up, hence the numbers fromo ND and UNH above being a big massaged. They're not incorrect, but by no means represent how many were actually there. BU, for whatever reason, did not include the tickets with the season ticket package this year so all Season ticket holders had to go onto their accounts this week and buy them, which very few did so they couldn't even pretend like those tickets were distributed last night when they were not.
Edit - I went back and looked at last year's numbers, BC's series with UVM they didn't go above 3,500 once against UVM. UML had Notre Dame in town and only barely got above 4K Friday and Saturday. Getting a playoff series at home against Notre Dame for a program like Lowell is a HUGE thing, as it would be for UConn. I can't imagine if ND were in Hartford this weekend there'd only be 4K at XL.
Point being, these first round and QF series nationwide have been attendance drags for years. Even North Dakota, the Kentucky of college hockey, who sells out EVERY game and has hoards of fans, had 1,000+ seats unsold for both of their QF home games last year.