CALGARY – Although television ratings on TSN were down significantly from last year’s U20 when Canada and Russia staged a dramatic gold-medal game finale, numbers were still impressive all the same for the just-concluded 2012 U20 in Alberta.

The gold-medal game between Sweden and Russia drew an average audience of 1.4 million viewers.

The bronze-medal game earlier in the day between Canada and Finland drew 1.2 million, while the wildly entertaining Canada-Russia semi-finals game on January 3 drew a tournament-high 3.1 viewers.

In 2011, in Buffalo, an incredible 14.2 million Canadians watched some or all of the gold-medal game which featured a dramatic comeback by the Russians to beat Canada, 5-3. In a country of 33 million, that represented nearly half the population. Average viewership for the game was a staggering 6.88 million, also a record.