Bloomberg reports that the 27.6 million viewers tuned in on NBC, the biggest audience since the US beat Finland for Olympic gold in 1980 at Lake Placid, New York.

The NHL suspended its season to let its players compete at the Vancouver Games, as it has done so since the 1998 Nagano Games. But it is not completely happy with the arrangement and says it has not decided whether it will do it again in 2014.

“This is the payoff that we will see from this year -- a huge audience,” Bettman said yesterday in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “It’s a balancing act.”

Bettman said the NHL “need more control over what goes on,” and would continue discussions with the International Ice Hockey Federation and the International Olympic Committee about “things that we could do differently”.

“People should not infer one way or the other whether or not we are going by virtue of the fact that we have not made a decision,” he said. “In Salt Lake City in 2002, we had not committed to Torino.”