Although attendance has been down a bit, it's never been that great relative to the size of the GPC to begin with. It's not surprising that as the teams fortunes dip, so will attendance. However, most, if not all, of the GPC crowds are significantly larger than the Ritter can even hold. At the end of Ritter's time, the crowds were dipping to consistently less than sellout levels because of the quality of the team itself. So the attendance is still greatly improved since then.
What needs to be done is to find a way to make the GPC a bit more like the Ritter relative to it being an uncomfortable place for opponents to play in. I have no idea what the solution is aside from getting about 3 times as many students in the building on a regular basis and somehow magically make the seating bowl steeper and closer to the ice. I was probably one of many who suggested in our post-season survey from the GPC a couple seasons ago that more general admission was needed for students, but then they added GA seats behind the Tigers' goal. I was proposing adding more GA to extend the section around the opponents' goal and let students sit in GA closer to and at center ice, especially on the bench side (where TV cameras can see - like Duke does with basketball). That could intensify the atmosphere in there as well as make it look from TV like there are actually people there. When you watch the broadcast, it looks like a library in there. Of course that would only help if more students attended. Lower the student ticket prices even more and make them free occasionally (giveaways at various campus events, maybe) and try to do whatever you can to get them in the house with a host of sections set aside just for them. Let the "wealthy" alumni that can afford center ice reserved seats to sit on the penalty box side of center ice.
yeah I knew what he meant so kind of let that one go. 