Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
It has been "shown" that crowd noise is the controlling element in home-ice success? I don't know about that, and I rather suspect that there are all sorts of other contributing factors as to why most NHL teams are more successful at home than they are on the road.
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All things equal, you don't believe that a boisterous crowd can tip the scales in the favour of the home team at a *slight* advantage over the opposition?
So in '04 against the superiorly talented Red Wings team, you don't feel the Flames fed off the pandemonium in the Saddledome and got more of a lift out of their home crowd than the Wings did in Detroit? That every player didn't go out of his way to be physical, do something a
little extra in large part because they fed off the emotion of the crowd and city?
I think there's certainly something to be said for home advantage that can be driven by the atmosphere in the building stemming from fan noise. So, no, I don't have a case study with a sufficient sample size to change your opinion on the matter, but I can draw back over the years on teams that have gone further than they should have and I can certainly attribute at least partial responsibility to an amazing fan atmosphere