Canada loves hockey. That’s not a new conclusion, but it was illustrated in both the viewing numbers and the sports betting figures that have emerged since Connor McDavid’s overtime goal gave Team Canada the win over Team USA in the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game last Thursday.

Sportsnet, which aired the NHL-organized tournament, reported that 10.7 million people across Canada watched the final at Boston’s TD Garden, around  a quarter of the nation’s population.

On the wagering front, even in a market that loves hockey betting like Canada does, the activity seen was more akin to a Super Bowl or a World Series than it was to the NHL.

10 times as busy as NBA All-Star Game

Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) told Canadian Gaming Business that, overall, the 4-Nations Face-Off brought in over 10 times the betting activity that was seen around the NBA All-Star Game. When Canada faced the USA, that rose to a 20-fold increase. As for how bettors wagered on OLG’s Proline, 63% predicted before the tournament that Canada would win the championship, 79% backed Canada to win the final and 28% correctly predicted it would go to overtime.

Next door to Ontario, Loto-Québec told CGB that the 4 Nations final generated “unprecedented interest,” surpassing last year’s Stanley Cup Final. That echoes what commercial sportsbooks have reported south of the border in the U.S.

Commercial sportsbooks also saw huge surges in hockey betting.

PointsBet Canada told CGB that both Canada vs. USA matchups garnered about five times the activity of a typical NHL game, while a Betway spokesperson added to CGB that the tournament exceeded all expectations for the Super Group-owned sportsbook, “proving far more popular than the NHL All-Star Week it replaced.”

4 Nations games accounted for the four highest-handle hockey games so far this NHL season on both the U.S.-facing ESPN Bet and the Canadian theScore Bet. On the former, the top four betting games were Team USA’s tilts; on the latter, the quartet were all Canada clashes.

Sportsbooks cash in down south, pay up north of border

How commercial sportsbooks fared depends on location.

BetMGM reported that in the U.S., 64% of the bets and 58% of the money were on the USA. So, as trading manager Halvor Egeland noted, “Canada winning was a good outcome for the sportsbook.”

In Ontario, the outcome was starkly different, as illustrated by PENN Entertainment’s dual-sportsbook model.

For the final showdown, on ESPN BET, 79% of moneyline bets and 77% of moneyline handle were on Team USA. In Ontario on theScore Bet, as many as 84% of moneyline wagers and 87% of moneyline handle was laid down on Team Canada. ESPN Bet’s Director of North American Sports Trading, Adrian Horton, noted that total handle for the 4 Nations final surpassed last year’s World Series games and was on par with Sunday NFL games.