TORONTO – It was a record-setting Sunday for Rogers Sportsnet as 825,000 viewers tuned in to watch the London Knights defeat the Rimouski Oceanic 4-0 in the championship of the 2005 Mastercard Memorial Cup.
The audience was the highest to ever watch a Canadian Hockey League game, says the channel, and peaked at 1,020,000 (2+) viewers. The 825,000 championship audience is the fifth-largest in Sportsnet’s history. The average for the eight-game tournament was 554,000.
Twice during the 2005 Mastercard Memorial Cup, Sportsnet established new marks for audiences watching CHL, scoring 593,000 on opening night and 595,000 on Victoria Day. Before the tournament, the No. 1 audience for a CHL game on Sportsnet was 287,000 in December 2004, when the London Knights set the league unbeaten record. The network’s previous high for a Memorial Cup game was the 2004 final of 238,000.
Sportsnet also established a new high for sportsnetnews, as 376,000 viewers tuned in to the Memorial Cup post-game show.
Listed below are the record setting audience numbers for the eight games of the Memorial Cup in descending order:
London vs. Rimouski – Sunday, May 29 – 825,000
London vs. Kelowna – Monday, May 23 – 595,000
Rimouski vs. London – Saturday, May 21 – 593,000
London vs Ottawa – Thursday, May 26 – 556,000
Rimouski vs. Ottawa – Saturday, May 28 – 523,000
Ottawa vs. Rimouski – Tuesday, May 24 – 497,000
Rimouski vs. Kelowna – Wednesday, May 25 – 453,000
Ottawa vs. Kelowna – Sunday, May 22 – 436,000
The top five audiences in Sportsnet history are:
ALCS Game 7 – October 20, 2004 – 1,144,000
FIFA Under-19 Women’s Final – September 1, 2002 – 914,000
World Series Game 4 – October 27, 2004 – 912,000
ALCS Game 6 – October 19, 2004 – 863,000
2005 Memorial Cup Final – May 29, 2005 – 825,000
