We have a record to report: the Syracuse Crunch/Utica Comets AHL game Saturday night set a record for attendance at an indoor pro hockey game, drawing 30,715 to the Carrier Dome.
The indoor attendance record broke the old record of 28,138, set at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., for a 1996 National Hockey League playoff game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Philadelphia Flyers. It’s also the second-largest crowd in AHL history: the record is 45,653, set at Citizen’s Bank Park in 2012.
The Crunch, top development team of the National Hockey League’s Tampa Bay Lightning, defeated the Comets, top affiliate of the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks, 2-1, in the Toyota Frozen Dome Classic.
The Syracuse Crunch were also the first AHL team to put on an outdoor game when in 2010, a crowd of 21,508 fans – then the largest ever for an AHL game – packed the New York State Fairgrounds to watch the Crunch.
The Carrier Dome now owns two major attendance marks. On Feb. 1, 2014, the 35,446 fans who watched Syracuse University defeat Duke set an NCAA men’s basketball on-campus record.
