Thursday night's 4 Nations Face-Off championship game between Canada and the United States was possibly the most-anticipated hockey game in years, and it absolutely lived up to the hype.
The tension at TD Garden was palpable, even more so than the round-robin game between these two teams at Bell Centre on Saturday. Both teams played an incredibly tight game, and fittingly enough, needed more than 60 minutes to settle the score. Connor McDavid, the best player in the world right now, proved to be the hero for Canada, scoring at 8:18 of overtime to finish off a 3-2 victory in thrilling fashion.
For factors both in and out of the NHL's control, this was one of the rare games that had the full attention of not just the hockey world, but the sports world as a whole.
The proof is in the pudding, as the game averaged 9.252 million viewers on ESPN, more than any non-Olympic hockey game on record in the United States. On Sportsnet, Sportsnet+ and TVA in Canada, the game averaged 6.9 million viewers.
RATINGS: ESPN averaged 9.252 million viewers for Thursday’s Canada–United States Four Nations Championship game.
It is the most-watched non-Olympic hockey game on record.
Across the United States and Canada, last night’s game drew 16.1 million viewers, nearly matching last…
At around 16.1 million viewers across the U.S. and Canada, this game nearly matched Game 7 of last year's Stanley Cup Final between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers, which averaged 16.3 million viewers.
Saturday's game was already a massive draw, averaging 4.4 million viewers on ESPN alone to make it the most-watched non-Stanley Cup Final game in the U.S. since 2019. However, this one completely blew it out of the water.
It's clear that the NHL knocked it out of the park with this tournament, and the best part is there's more best-on-best hockey on the way. NHL players will participate in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, marking their first time playing on the Olympic stage since 2014. Two years later in 2028, the World Cup of Hockey will return for the first time since 2016, and the two tournaments will alternate going forward.
Needless to say, it's a good time to be a hockey fan.
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