Just in time for the holiday season, there's a bit of Christmas cheer in TSN's stocking.
After falling behind hated rival and perennial runner-up Sportsnet in the ratings battle, TSN could use the kind of good news that the world junior hockey tournament provides every winter. That news came on the weekend when a meaningless pre-tournament game finished seventh in the sports ratings, outdrawing a Saturday night NFL game and the Raptors.
That's encouraging for TSN, which fully expects this year's tournament to come up short compared with last year's. That's because this event is in Helsinki, meaning none of the prime-time games that pushed the Canadian-based 2015 tournament to ratings heights.