With a hockey team that has won seven national championships and is a perennial contender for the NCAA tournament, you would think more students would show their support.

The Pioneers are at the end of their regular season and hunting for the NCAA playoffs, and yet there was a disappointingly low number of students supporting them in their final home game of the season, which happened to be senior night, against North Dakota last weekend. It’s been a season long trend.

Against UND, who has arguably turned into our biggest rival, the student showing was embarrassing. On Friday, a total of 671 student tickets were sold, including the 368 season tickets, but only 228 students attended the game, a meager 34 percent. Saturday was even worse, selling a total of 583 student tickets, including 368 season tickets, and only 166 students (28.5 percent) came to the game.

The numbers from the then-No.1/2 Minnesota series, which is arguably one of the finest programs in college hockey, are almost identical, with 761 tickets sold for Friday and only 259 students, 34 percent, coming out to support. Again, Saturday’s numbers were worse with 542 sold and only 159 students (29.3 percent) in attendance.

The lack of support for such key games is disappointing; DU boasts an incredible program, and students can’t even show up for the huge games against UND and Minnesota. I will give credit to the student body, we always pack the CC games, but those are not the only big games for this program.

For all of you who own season tickets, you paid $72 dollars for those tickets that you continually allow to go to waste. Why not go?

Denver is on the playoff bubble, according to the latest Pairwise rankings, trying to keep above the No. 16 spot to clinch a playoff bid, but how are they supposed to do so without the support of their school behind them?

So where is everyone? We have a hockey team with 10 NHL draft picks and they are supported by a feeble number of fans at games.

There are certainly those devoted fans who pack the front few rows of the student section every game, but with a school of 5,000 undergraduates and 6,000 graduate students, we should be more than capable of packing more than several rows.

The players consistently work to perform at their best to represent the University of Denver, yet they are met with only a handful of students supporting them. Hockey is DU’s biggest sport, so where is the school spirit?

Since the Pioneers clinched home ice for the Western Collegiate Hockey Association playoffs, which begin March 9, students have at least one more opportunity this season to watch the Pioneers play on our home ice.

We need to get out there, pack our student section and support our Pioneer hockey players. We shouldn’t be a school that only packs their student section because CC is here, or ESPN is covering a basketball game, so we look like a real school with spirit. We should be packing every game so we are a real school with spirit.