Finland has been one of the superpowers of hockey for a long time now, but in recent years they’ve become even more solidified towards the top of the hockey world. Since 2011, Finland has won two gold medals at the World Hockey Championship, and another three at the World Juniors.
NHL teams are starting to fill up with Finnish stars. Aleksander Barkov, Sebastian Aho, Mikko Rantanen, Patrik Laine, Miro Heiskanen to name a few, while Finland is also well represented in NHL creases with Tuukka Rask, Jusse Saros, Pekka Rinne, and more.
The popularity just keeps on growing in Finland, and we got a pretty good look at that when the viewership numbers returned from the IIHF World Championship gold medal game.
According to Finnish media outlet MTV Uutiset, the gold medal game was easily the most watched program of the year. Here are some of the stats:
- Average number of spectators: 2.3 million
- Total number of spectators: 3 million
- 5.518 million people in Finland, meaning over half of the country’s population was reached
Unfortunately for all those watching the Lions, they were unable to bring home the gold medal. Canada defeated Finland 3-2 in an overtime thriller, sending the Finnish squad home with the silver.
While the World Championship has had trouble attracting big names in recent years, it’s nice to see the tournament is still receiving a fair amount of attention.
(H/T MTV Uutiset)
