VANCOUVER - The opening game of the Stanley Cup final produced the best U.S. TV ratings on NBC for a Game 1 in 12 years, the NHL said Thursday.
Wednesday's game between the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins generated a 3.2 overnight rating and six share, up 14 per cent compared to last year, the league said in a release.
A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or one per cent of the estimated 114.7 million TV homes in the U.S. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
Final numbers of total viewership will be available in the next few days.
CBC's viewer numbers for Game 1 weren't immediately available.
The opening game of last year's final between the Philadelphia Flyers and Chicago Blackhawks had a 2.8 overnight rating and six share in the U.S.
Game 1 of the 1999 final between the Buffalo Sabres and Dallas Stars drew a 3.7 overnight rating on Fox.
This is the first Stanley Cup final featuring a Canadian team since the Ottawa Senators played the Anaheim Ducks in 2007. The U.S. ratings for Wednesday's game were 113-percent higher than the first game of that series.