• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, March 1, 2010

A little patriotism up and down North America helped Sunday's Olympic hockey finale net record ratings. The U.S.-Canada battle for the gold was the most-watched hockey game in the U.S. since the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" days. In Canada, where the quest for the gold was a national obsession, the game became the most-watched TV program ever.

The NBC telecast of Canada's stunning overtime victory in Vancouver produced an average of 27.6 million viewers. That's about 20 million more than tuned in for game seven of last year's Stanley Cup Finals, while topping all hockey broadcasts since 32.8 million saw the U.S. gold medal victory over Finland in the 1980 Olympics, which followed the "Miracle on Ice" win over Russia.<

In Canada, an average of 16.6 million watched the 3-2 overtime home-team win -- close to half of the country's population -- becoming the most-viewed TV event in country history, according to the Canadian broadcasters. The game was carried on nine networks in eight languages, with primary outlets CTV in English and the RDS network in French in Quebec.

Also, about 80% of Canada -- 26.5 million -- watched at least part of the game.

The scale of the Canadian ratings are less surprising than in the U.S., where hockey seems to keep losing interest to other sports and is in danger of finding little more than a niche identity. But the Olympics is more than what happens on the ice, slopes or curling lanes. An unexpectedly compelling story can stimulate huge interest with barely a day's notice.

Such was the case with the unlikely appearance of the Americans in the gold medal game. The unheralded team before the Olympics was expected to go home early, not produce a captivating victory over the Canadians back on Feb. 20 and keep winning all the way until Sunday.

In Canada, the hockey-crazed nation had been expecting nothing less than a gold medal from its star-studded team on its home soil -- a national cause that has been building for months. On Monday, as the country continued to celebrate, a Montreal radio host pondered how many people watched the game and wondered: "What the heck was everyone else doing?"