4 Nations Face-Off: USA-Canada title game sees record viewership [Video]

Fights and anthem boos led to even casual hockey fans getting pumped up about Thursday’s 4 Nations Face-Off championship.

Team USA and Team Canada duked it out in Boston on Thursday for the final of the tournament in its inaugural year, five days after the two longtime rivals got into three fights in the first nine seconds of their first game last week.

The fights, which came following a Montreal crowd loudly booing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” got non-hockey fans locked in, and it turned into, quite literally, the biggest hockey game ever.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM

ESPN reported that 9.3 million fans in the United States tuned into the final on Thursday night, the largest Nielsen rating viewership recorded in NHL history, which dates back to 1994. That figure is more than double the game last Saturday, which attracted 4.4 million people.

The previous record for Nielsen ratings was the 8.9 million who tapped into …