The emphasis on luxury has clear returns, as the Gophers draw nearly 2,000 fans per game, which is almost always more than what opponents draw to their home arenas when Minnesota comes to town. Chants and all, the home environment of Ridder Arena is intimidating, and the crowd will reach fever-pitch intensity on Sunday afternoon.

“It makes a difference when the crowd is really into it and pumping the team up,” said Harvard senior forward Hillary Crowe. “We talk about that sixth man. There’s a little bit of envy [as a Crimson player].”

Crowe, a Minnesota native on the Harvard roster, has a unique perspective on this regional divide. Growing up in Eden Prairie, Minn., a city 12 miles outside Minneapolis, she was as infatuated by the Gophers as any other local.

“As a Minnesota hockey player, I grew up always wanting to go to the U,” Crowe said. “Later on in the process, doors opened up out East, and I fell in love with the culture out East.”

She may have fallen for the culture of the East at large, but Crowe ended up in a specific city. Like scores of other talented hockey players, Crowed found herself in college in Boston. Or, more specifically, at a college across the river from Boston.

RISING IN THE NORTHEAST 

Renovated this past year, the Bright-Landry Center is impressive in its own right. The arena is light, clean, and open, and a four-sided video screen hangs above center ice, providing video replays throughout the game.

But a hockey arena can only look so impressive when, in the 2014-15 season, the home team fills an average of 793 seats out of 2,800 available ones. A video screen can only give so much information when many of the fans that do come can’t tell an offside call from an icing call. 

Maybe this is the best way to put it: there is no Harvard women’s ice hockey equivalent to the Minnesota Rouser.

The comparative lack of spirit in Bright-Landry is not a result of inferior on-ice talent. The Crimson has consistently ranked among the best teams in the nation over the past few years, posting upwards of 20 wins in each of the last four campaigns.

But the lack of popular support is so apparent that earlier the season, a Harvard student and Crimson sports editor wrote a column lamenting the lack of student dedication for the Harvard men’s ice hockey program. Mind you, this is a team that once stood at No. 1 in the national standings.

The imbalance between quality of venue and student popularity is not limited to the Crimson. Since 1910, Boston has housed Matthews Arena, the oldest hockey stadium in perpetual use. Northeastern teams still use the stadium, but an average of 302 people—less than a sixth of the Gophers’ average totals—come to see games. 

It’s difficult to pin down the origin of this hockey apathy without a general invocation of culture. This sort of logic argues that the Midwest prioritizes hockey because it always has. That’s that, end of story.

A more concrete explanation has to do with the way that hockey players develop in Minnesota instead of Massachusetts. The majority of players on the Gophers’ roster arrive on campus after playing at a public high school.

Cultural attitudes can be subjective and difficult to pin down, but the level of public school hockey talent is not. By providing free access to high-quality competition, Midwest high schools open up hockey to an entire population.