It was a match worthy of a final! For more than an hour, the USA and Canada danced around each other on the ice at TD Garden before the visitors won the 4 Nations championship game 3-2 in OT last night. Connor McDavid‘s 8:18 overtime goal brought Team Canada the breakthrough they were looking for so desperately. But off the ice too, the match was just as noteworthy.

The 4 Nations Face-Off was projected as a “Landmark International Hockey Tournament” that had the potential to replace the NHL All-Star game for good. And from the looks of things, it seems like the championship match bolstered the claim once again.

A post by NHL News on X from February 21 has shared the TV viewership data from last night’s 4 Nations championship match. As per the post, the USA and Canada’s second clash in the tournament was the “Most-watched non-Olympic hockey game on record in the United States.” In the United States, the match drew 9.252 million average viewers on the ESPN network alone, while across the border, the number reached a beefy 6.883 million.

A combined average viewership of 16.135 million was a new milestone in terms of how many people watched the game on TV. According to a BucciOT.com, the number was “Higher than any NHL game ever,” underscoring the immense hype that the 4 Nations championship game managed to create. However, it’s not like the tournament finale was an anomaly that racked up these impressive numbers all of a sudden.

Instead, hints were there from the very beginning. Both the opening matches of the 4 Nations between Canada-Sweden and the USA-Finalnd crossed 1 million average viewership. The USA-Finland match, with its 1.548 million average views on ESPN, was “the most-watched hockey broadcast since last year’s Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final,” shared Braylon Breeze on X. But understandably, the clash of the North American heavyweights from last Saturday hogged all the attention. As per ESPN, the February 15 match-up As per ESPN, the February 15 match-up saw a 473% spike in viewership compared to the Canada vs USA game at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, and a 369% spike compared to the NHL average on ABC this season. Impressive, right?

But what changed? While last month’s game between the San Jose Sharks and the Seattle Kraken was the least-watched NHL game on ESPN, how did the 4 Nations championship match manage to turn the situation on its head?

Impressive 4 Nations championship statistics that weren’t entirely unexpected

The NHL All-Star game hasn’t been as popular of late as it used to be. Instead, demands for an international tournament kept rising across the community. With that in mind, the NHL and the NHLPA came up with the solution: The 4 Nations Face-Off. The tournament had a number of goals to achieve, including boosting TV ratings, bringing more exposure to one of the fastest sports in the world, creating a landmark event in the middle of a slump in the sports calendar, and last but not least, jump-starting the road to the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics.

And the results were incredibly good. The 4 Nations reported an average of 4.6 million views for all of the 6 round-robin matches across North America, while the championship match smashed through all previous records. With declining NHL viewership numbers in recent years, the international tournament was like a breath of fresh air that was long due for the sport and its fans.

However, considering the build-up to the championship game, it would be safe to say that such incredible statistics weren’t entirely unwarranted. After the USA players and The Star-Spangled Banner were booed heavily at the Bell Centre last Saturday, fans waited to see if Team Canada would also receive similar treatments in Boston. While many players refused to let the pressure get under their skin, it was evident: that the 4 Nations finale was shaping up to be something truly historic. Did you think so too? What are your thoughts after the USA narrowly missed out on lifting the inaugural trophy last night? Would you like to see the 4 Nations return next year? Tell us everything!