Trevor Zegras: U.S. Olympic Hockey Gold Sparks Massive TV and Streaming Audience After Hughes Overtime Winner

trevor zegras Jack Hughes' sudden-death overtime goal lifted the United States over Canada to win the men's Olympic hockey gold, the first U. S. men's title since 1980, and produced one of the largest combined broadcast and streaming audiences for a morning start in U. S. sports history. The outcome and the viewing figures matter because they underscore a surge in live interest for the Winter Games and helped make these Olympics the most-watched since 2014.

Trevor Zegras and the headlines: what the verified facts show

The men's gold-medal final was decided in sudden-death overtime by Jack Hughes, delivering the United States its first Olympic men's hockey gold since the 1980 team. The game generated exceptionally large audiences across combined broadcast and streaming windows, with different measurement windows producing distinct headline figures.

Audience breakdown: live, combined averages and peaks

The live audience for the game's primary morning window (8: 15 a. m. to 11 a. m. ET) averaged 18. 6 million viewers. When encores and additional broadcast windows were added, the total average audience for the day rose to 20. 7 million viewers. The broadcast and streaming audience peaked at roughly 26 million viewers during the overtime goal that decided the gold medal.

Context around these numbers highlights scale: the 2010 men's gold-medal game is the only hockey event that has registered a larger single-game audience in U. S. measured history, with a peak figure cited at 27. 6 million viewers. The Milan-Cortina Olympics averaged 23. 5 million viewers across the Games, a figure that made these the most-watched Winter Olympics since 2014.

Team USA performance and ripple effects on viewership

• Team USA won a record 12 gold medals at these Games, and that sustained success contributed to consistently strong audiences.
• All 15 days of the Games recorded average audiences above 20 million viewers, indicating broad, day-to-day engagement throughout the event.
• The U. S. women's gold-medal game, also decided in overtime, averaged 5. 3 million viewers in its primary windows and peaked at 7. 7 million during the game-winning goal, setting a record for women's hockey viewership.

The aggregation of live morning audiences, encore windows and prime-time coverage produced the higher headline averages and peaks that dominated postgame coverage. These viewing patterns show strong appetite for marquee Olympic moments, even with early local start times.

What this means going forward

The combination of a dramatic finish—an overtime winner to secure the U. S. men's first Olympic hockey gold since 1980—and elevated interest in multiple medal events produced exceptional reach for the Milan-Cortina Games. The numbers documented here reflect a notable rebound in Winter Games viewership and a reinforced appetite for live sports moments that can cross morning and evening viewing windows.

Note: this article includes the tag trevor zegras in the headline and body as a topical keyword; the factual report above is limited to verified details about the men's gold-medal game outcome and measured audience figures.