Health Guidance, Hockey, and the Home Advantage

While Cornell University’s COVID-19 guidance failed to stop last semester’s surge in cases, it may have stifled school spirit, specifically our home advantage.

Attending a hockey game at Lynah rink is a quintessential Cornell experience. There’s a reason why the Cornell Daily Sun has “Go to the Cornell-Harvard men’s hockey game and throw fish on the ice” near the top of its “161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do” list. And the Lynah Faithful keep several noteworthy traditions. As the Ithaca Voice’s Jeff Stein reported in 2014, the diehard fans throw newspapers onto the rink after the opposing team’s introduction, shout “RED!” during the national anthem, and throw toothpaste onto the rink during games against Colgate.

And though throwing a fish (yes, that is an actual tradition) is all fun and good, Cornell’s hockey games foster a sense of camaraderie. The Review’s then-campus editor Amber Li recalled her experience at the last Cornell-Harvard game before the pandemic, saying:

Our arch-rival Harvard University arrived at Lynah Rink on a Saturday night on January 25, following our 3-2 victory over Dartmouth the previous night. At this point, the men’s team had clutched the #1 spot in the country. It was the most anticipated and well-attended game of the year. Sitting in one of the student sections, the chants and cheers were deafening. Under no better atmosphere could we have celebrated the 50th anniversary of the perfect season. During the first intermission, we welcomed back the 1970 national championship team… As the team turned around to face the student sections, the crowd started chanting “UNDEFEATED” over and over. The players could surely see that after all these years, the Lynah Faithful had not changed, and the team was as appreciated and loved as ever.

Going into 2022, it was clear that this year’s Cornell-Harvard game was going to be very different. For one thing, while fish still flew onto the rink, there were fewer spectators. In an email sent out to all ticket holders, Cornell students were reminded that they “will be required to space out within the sections.” The Sun reported that Lynah Rink was capped at 50% capacity during last Saturday’s game. That weekend, our hockey team tied twice, once with Dartmouth and another time with Harvard.

One factor that could explain these results is the impact of Cornell’s policies on its “home advantage,” or the phenomenon where the home team does better than the away team in sports. Several studies have already been done outlining the impact of COVID-19 on the home advantage.

University of Leeds psychologist Dane McCarrick and colleagues studied the effect of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns on the performance of home teams in European soccer leagues. McCarrick specifically “examined how two factors — crowd influence on the teams and crowd influence on referee decision-making — compared as a result of teams playing the majority of their season with crowds present and the remainder of the seasons with crowds absent.” His team found that, “For team performance, our data clearly showed that when controlling for factors such as country, league, schedule, and team quality, the effect of playing in virtually empty stadia had a significant negative impact on the typical home team performance.”

University of Düsseldorf researchers Kai Fischer and Justice Haucap also found that the decrease in home advantage during the pandemic  is “best explained through the lower occupancy rate in the stadia.” They did note that teams “used to low occupancy rates” saw a “less dramatic” decrease in their home advantage.

So what do these studies about soccer leagues have to do with Cornell’s hockey performance this year? While it is true that our team is not playing in “empty stadia,” Cornell’s covid policies have prevented them from enjoying the fan support of past years. The studies show that this loss of support is not inconsequential to the team’s performance. Were it not for the reduced crowds, perhaps Cornell would have won their games last week.

As I have said before, Cornell’s COVID-19 policies have dragged on for far too long, at many times  beyond common sense. As last semester’s surge demonstrated, Cornell’s “zero-COVID” strategy has failed to stop the spread of the virus. It may, however, be hindering our team’s performance.