The difference couldn’t be more striking: During last year’s nasty winter, impressive crowds braved the snow and below-freezing temperatures to take in

Victoria Salmon Kings ECHL games at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre.

Under more normal West Coast weather conditions this winter season, far fewer fans have been coming out with a Pacific Ocean of blue seats providing the backdrop on most nights.

The Salmon Kings are down an average of 1,030 fans per game from last season. The average through 16 home dates is 3,893, which ranks 12th in the 20-team ECHL and is below the league average of 4,162. The Victoria club, secondary farm team of the Vancouver Canucks after the AHL Manitoba Moose, finished with a league ninth-best average of 4,923 fans per game last season. The team reports the season ticket base has dipped to around 2,000 from 2,500 last season.

“We’ve seen a significant drop in season tickets and also walk-ups. Our business is to sell tickets, so when we’re not doing that, we’re obviously concerned,” said team president Dave Dakers.

There may have been a near perfect storm of reasons for this, with the club’s horrific 1-9 start combined with the malaise in the general economy. The latter’s recovery remains anybody’s guess, but the Salmon Kings have done their part by rebounding in the standings with a six-game winning streak and nine-game home winning streak.

“In some ways, we shot ourselves in the foot. Some of the reasons for the drop-off in attendance have been our fault, but others have been issues beyond our control. We’re optimistic because our business remains solid and we believe we will grow that attendance again in the second half of the season,” said Dakers, No. 2 behind owner Graham Lee in RG Properties, which owns the Salmon Kings and operates the Memorial Centre.

“Mark [GM and head coach Mark Morrison] has done a great job of not hitting the panic button. He took his bumps early in the season and deserves a lot of respect [for turning things]. We’ve seen a nice pick-up in ticket sales for the Alaska series [Sunday and Monday]. And, hey, guess what? We’re winning now. So that might not be a coincidence.”

It may also be that the seven-year itch — a pop psychology theory espoused in a famous Marilyn

Monroe movie that holds that married couples go through an antsy and questioning period — has actually turned into a six-year itch between the Salmon Kings and the community.

“We’re in our sixth season and that’s generally in this business when you get some turnover in fans,” noted Dakers. “We have to work hard to replace them.”

The Salmon Kings also operate in a sophisticated Canadian hockey market where rumours are always flying about different leagues coming in.

“It’s actually been a

benefit for us because it keeps us in the news among hockey fans and in the hockey world,” said Dakers.

“But people do have more understanding of the WHL and AHL [than the ECHL], so it’s still an uphill battle in many ways.”

These Salmon have always seemed to swim upstream, but swim they have.

“This market has a lot of competing interests [for the entertainment dollar],” acknowledged Dakers.

“We believe in our product and we know it is entertaining and those who see it come back.”

There is much evidence for that elsewhere — Ontario, Calif., leads the ECHL in average attendance at 5,929 and is one of six ECHL markets attracting more than 5,000 fans per game this season. Victoria was almost there last season. But falling from that nearly 5,000 average attendance plateau in 2008-09 to under 4,000 this season, the Victoria club can only hope the rebound in the stands matches the one seen recently on the ice.