Canada proved yet again that it is a nation obsessed with all things hockey this holiday season. The proof lies in viewership numbers for the World Juniors, with average viewership up for Team Canada games compared with the last time the tournament was held in Europe. 

Even though Team Canada left the tournament in the quarter-finals after losing to host nation Finland, average audiences for Canadian games were up 16% on TSN and RDS against the last European tournament, according to Numeris data from Bell Media.

Overall, Team Canada’s five games attracted an average audience of 2.1 million viewers, with 2.5 million tuning into the quarter-final loss (2.2 million on TSN and 316,000 on RDS). The game was the most-watched quarter-final game held outside of North America for the tournament. 

Numbers for Team Canada’s games peaked in its Boxing Day preliminary round match against the U.S. That game was watched by an average audience of 2.8 million viewers.

Tuesday’s gold medal game, which saw Finland beating Russia in overtime, was watched by an average audience of 729,000 viewers, with 637,000 tuning into TSN and 92,000 watching the game on RDS.

Next year’s World Junior Championship tournament will be held in Toronto and Montreal. When the tournament was hosted by those cities in 2015 it was watched by record audiences on TSN and RDS. Last year’s gold medal game between Canada and Russia was watched by an average audience of 7.1 million viewers on TSN and RDs, breaking the record for the most-watched specialty program in Canadian television history.