The "golden age" may be over, but they're far below even conservatively realistic potential, because they spent multiple cycles of students just kind of assuming that the fan base would take care of itself, forgetting that each new class needs an introduction, and two of the key elements of marketing are to inform and remind.
Promotional efforts make a huge difference in introducing new fans to Wisconsin Hockey and what it's all about, and they've only recently begun to right that ship. So many students - sports fans, even hockey fans - pass through campus giving no thought to UW hockey beyond an abstract awareness of its existence ("yeah I guess it's a thing...we always suck, right?"). Make it an attractive product, people try it out, they start to really get it, and some of them stick as fans. Every spring when I was a student, the outer layers would come off, NHL playoffs would start, and the amount of visible hockey fans was insane (even compared to other sports).
Or in short: Inspiring more interest results in more interest, and it's easy to inspire more interest when your starting point is short of doing even the most basic things that any major program should always be doing.
Edit: FWIW, I thought they should've been putting out more stuff even when the team was straight-up bad and the results weren't exactly selling the team. I still wanted it in the general consciousness of sports fans here.
