Most of the team has grown up playing in front of larger and larger crowds at every level they have advanced through.  Having 20000 screaming fans at home games is something that we would count on to get us pumped up and perform our best.  With empty arenas now the norm, and fake crowd noise being played over the loud speakers, it just lacks something.  It is very difficult to truly get up for a game when you do not have the fans that make it special in the stands.  Of course we soldier on, and when you are on the ice, you are generally so focused the crowd noise gets muted a bit but man, when you score, you miss that roar.

It sounds like many places are getting closer to allowing fans back so we all hope that things will go back to normal here or at least normal with a mask on.  Because we are indoors, it does make it a bit more challenging but we hope that by the end of the season, we have at least reduced capacity fan numbers back in the stands.