NBC Expects Record Streaming Numbers For U.S.-Canada Hockey

NBC officials said that they "believed the network had the infrastructure to deal with a huge number of streams" for today's U.S.-Canada men's hockey Olympic semifinal game at noon ET. Yesterday's Canada-U.S. women's Gold Medal game produced 1.16 million streams, "well above" staff expectations of about 400,000. The "concern at NBC is whether too many people streaming" today's game at work will "overload their office networks." NBC Sports Group Senior VP & GM for Digital Media Rick Cordella: "We're ready to handle this. ... It's hard to prepare for a record-breaking stream." The game also will air on NBCSN (N.Y. TIMES, 2/21).

The TORONTO STAR's Damien Cox writes under the header, "Canada-U.S. Men's Semifinal Likely To Be Highlight Of Olympic Tourney." Cox: "These two countries have played some terrific contests in the previous four Olympics since NHLers have become involved. ... It wouldn't be entirely unreasonable to expect the same on Friday" (TORONTO STAR, 2/21).