In the United States, 167 million people — or more than half the U.S. population — have already watched the Games on NBC, Lumme said. Last Thursday, the Olympic knocked American Idol out of first place in the ratings.
The centrepiece was to be a game featuring Sidney Crosby's Pittsburgh Penguins and Alex Ovechkin's Capitals in Washington. The concept was to capitalize on the profile hockey will gain in the United States from the Vancouver Games by featuring Crosby and Ovechkin, the NHL's top two TV attractions, in a special venue in the U.S. capital - possibly the National Mall.