Early data released by CBC measured how many Canadians watched peak moments of Sunday’s Winter Olympics gold medal game between Canada and the United States. As for the average minute audience for the entire game, it drew 7.8 million across English & French TV (CBC, TSN, Sportsnet, ICI TÉLÉ, RDS).
That is a huge audience for anything airing between 8:15 am ET and 11 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Put in context: the men’s final outdrew the Super Bowl in Canada.
Proportionally, the men’s final was a much bigger draw in Canada than in the States. Still, it was a big number there as well. NBC released data Wednesday that 20.7 million viewers watched across NBC, Peacock and USA Network as measured by Nielsen Big Data and Adobe Analytics.
Broken down, NBC and Peacock showed the game to an average minute audience of 18.6 million, with coverage peaking at 26M for the game winning goal in overtime by New Jersey Devils’ Jack Hughes.
NBC says it is the second most-watched hockey game ever on NBC, behind only the 2010 men’s gold between Canada and the USA at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. That game, which aired at a more accessible afternoon time, drew 27.6 million.
In women’s hockey at the Olympics, Team USA again edged Canada in overtime with 5.3 million watching in America on USA Network and Peacock. That made it the most-watched women’s hockey game on record.
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As large as the Olympic gold medal game hockey audience was, even more people watched most of the American players two night later. The audience for the US State of the Union address, where participating players were shown off like so much gold inside the White House, was watched by an estimated 32.6 million viewers. While that is a lot, it was the only thing on that night, carried by 15 networks including ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, EstrellaTV, Telemundo, Univision, PBS, CNN and Fix News Channel.
CANADIAN RATINGS TV Data Source: Numeris TV PPM, February 22, 2026 at 8:19 am – 11:36am, Data is based on unconfirmed, overnight audiences, generated by Instar TV.
