Photo via NHL.com
Pre-Connor McDavid, the last time the Edmonton Oilers found their way into the NHL playoffs was in 2006. The Oilers lost to Carolina in the Stanley Cup finals that year, and if that was sad for Edmonton fans, it was maybe also the best thing for their hearing health.
Caught up in Edmonton’s success on the way to the ’06 finals, University of Alberta professor of audiology William Hodgetts heard enough to want to take a professional measure of the effects of a rink filled with spirited fans. While 85 decibels is generally regarded as the maximum safe exposure level over an eight-hour period, Hodgetts was measuring average playoff levels of more than 100 db that year. When Edmonton scored, the hubbub spiked to 120 db — “roughly equivalent to the sound level of a jet taking flight,” as he later wrote.
Hodgetts subsequently published his findings in The Canadian Medical Association Journal under the title “Can Hockey Playoffs Harm Your Hearing?” The answer he delivered up was a resounding yes: in the games he studied, fans cheering on their beloved Oilers received about “8100 % of their daily allowable noise dose.”
“Given that most fans do not wear hearing protection during hockey games,” the study observed, “thousands are at risk for hearing damage.”
The NHL does now recommend that teams not exceed 95 db when it comes to in-rink entertainment, but there’s no indication that much has changed in the din department.
A history of hockey noise would have to include the Chicago Stadium, which didn’t take long after it opened in 1929 to gain both a nickname, “The Madhouse on Madison,” and a reputation as the loudest building in hockey.
A key component of the racket was Al Melgard, who took the job of organist in 1930 and kept at it until his retirement in 1974. Nine-fingered — he lost one to a buzz-saw in childhood — Melgard played the Stadium’s massive Barton pipe organ through some 2,000 Blackhawk hockey games. The largest instrument of its kind anywhere, the organ featured six keyboards, 883 stops, and approximately 40,000 pipes. “This organ,” Melgard said in 1950, “has a full-volume equivalent to 25 heavy brass bands.”
When the Madhouse closed in 1994, the Blackhawks moved to the United Center, losing some of the legendary loudness along the way. The noisiest building in hockey nowadays? Most with experience of the league’s 30 rinks agree that it’s Montreal’s Bell Centre.
A non-scientific 2011 study by a reporter wielding a hand-held decibel meter supported that finding.
He found that the cheering that followed “O Canada” hit 99.6 decibels in Montreal, compared to 91.9 in Toronto. The Canadiens were playing the Maple Leafs the night of the testing in Montreal. Great saves by goaltender Carey Price produced enthusiasm reaching to 99 db. No matter: Toronto ended up winning the game 5-4 on a goal by centre Tyler Bozek that elicited a commotion (boos and cheers) of 98.7 db. Subsequent chants of “Leafs suck” registered at 91.1 db.
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