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Feb 12, 2025; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; [Imagn Images direct customers only] Team Canada forward Sidney Crosby (87) prepares for a face-off against Team Sweden in the second period during a 4 Nations Face-Off ice hockey game at Bell Centre. Mandatory Credit: David Kirouac-Imagn Images
The NHL may have something with its new “Four Nations Face-Off.”
Wednesday’s Canada-Sweden NHL Four Nations Face-Off opener averaged a 0.51 rating and 1.05 million viewers across TNT and truTV, marking the largest NHL audience on cable this season, surpassing the NHL Winter Classic on the same networks New Year’s Eve (Blues-Blackhawks: 920K).
Canada’s overtime win ranks fourth for the NHL season across all networks, trailing three games on ABC — Golden Knights-Bruins this past Saturday (1.27M), Rangers-Bruins the prior Saturday (1.06M) and Rangers-Capitals on January 4 (1.06M).
Viewership nearly doubled the previous high for an indoor game on TNT Sports this season, 537,000 for Bruins-Rangers the previous week.
For the night, Canada-Sweden was not too far off ESPN’s competing Spurs-Celtics NBA regular season game (1.21M) and outdrew NASCAR Daytona 500 qualifying on FS1 (916K).
The Four Nations Face-Off is a one-time replacement for the NHL All-Star Game pitting teams representing Canada, the United States, Finland and Sweden. The United States plays its first game Thursday night against Finland on ESPN, followed by a primetime Saturday matchup against Canada on ABC and a Monday night meeting with Sweden on TNT/truTV.
Based on the Wednesday figures, those games may well be among the strongest NHL draws — outside of the playoffs — in some time.
Last year’s NHL All-Star Game averaged 1.40 million viewers on ABC, with Friday night festivities at 823,000 on ESPN.
Jon Lewis has been covering the sports media industry on a daily basis since 2006 as the founder and main writer of Sports Media Watch. You can contact him here or on the social media websites X (Twitter), Threads or Bluesky.
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NBA take note. A USA vs the world game would be a smash hit. The only reason the NBA won’t do it is because Team USA would get trounced.
“USA would get trounced” you’re tripping brother .
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