Watching the Olympics? So is almost everyone else in Canada

Could it be possible that the vast - and I do mean vast - majority of people in Canada have watched at least part of the Olympics on television?

It seems that if you're looking to break the ice in any potential conversation in this country right now, you could easily do that by opening with a comment about the London Olympics. Because it will be familiar fare for whomever you're talking to.

That's the claim the country's broadcast consortium is making, in the wake of some big, huge viewing numbers during the past two weeks. Numbers that indicate a particular love for sprinter Usain Bolt and the Canadian women's soccer team.

[Slideshow: Canadian soccer star Christine Sinclair]

According to the ratings released by the group, over 30-million Canadians have seen some part of the Games' coverage on one of the consortium television partners. They claim that works out to 90.7% of the population - 92% of all men, 91% of all women and 87% of all children.

That includes the biggest single draw of the games so far, The Canada - U.S. semi final soccer game on Monday. Canada's heartbreaking loss was filled with enough hype beforehand, and drama within, that a staggering 10.7 million Canadians grabbed a viewing piece at some point. The game averaged 3.4 million viewers and as it built to its extra time crescendo, an audience of 7.1 million was glued to the set. That was at 5:13 pm ET, right around the time American forward Alex Morgan was getting her head on a cross and redirecting the ball into the net to give the U.S. a 4-3 win.

To give that some context, compare those numbers to those of the Stanley Cup Final on CBC earlier this year. The Cup clinching game (Game 6) drew an average of 3.1-million viewers with a peak audience of 4.7 million. That match-up, of course, was between two American teams, The Los Angeles Kings and New Jersey Devils. When you compare to the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, where the Vancouver Canucks lost in Game 7 to the Boston Bruins, the women's soccer numbers are still impressive. A reported 8.76-million people tuned in at some point to watch Game 7 between the Bruins and Canucks, with another million watching on French language RDS.

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Usain Bolt's run to a repeat in the 100 metres late Sunday afternoon captured the fancy of Canadians, too. It's no surprise that 6.2-million people tuned in, according to the group's media release, with nearly 5 million watching on CTV alone. That is the biggest average audience of the games so far, outside of the opening ceremony. The consortium is led by Bell Media, owners of CTV and TSN, with an 80% stake. Rogers is the holder of the other 20%.

The nation's interest in the London Games has been evident from the outset, with 6.4 million, on average, and a total of over 16 million watching some portion of the opening ceremony back on July 27th.

The numbers, released by BBM, the company that oversees the top ratings gathering process in Canada, suggests that Canadians are a fan of events as they happen, as opposed to watching them in delay fashion, during prime time.

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Olympic Daytime programming, seen between noon and 6 p.m. ET captured an average daily viewership of 3.6 million between the days of August 3rd through 5th, while the evening prime time show (7 - 11 p.m. ET) averaged 2.9 million during the same period. The Olympic morning telecast averaged 1.3 million viewers between 4 a.m. and noon ET.

That model seems to suggest that live programming is the way to go, at least in Canada.

In the Unites States, NBC's propensity to show big events not live but, rather, in a packaged production during prime time evening hours, has not seemed to hurt them one bit as they've been reporting massive numbers of viewers for events that happened hours before they were seeing them. That's a pattern that's held up for NBC since the opening ceremony, when their decision to show that event in tape delay sparked torrents of criticism, but also record viewing numbers.

Hard to know if Bolt's gold medal runs in both the 100 and 200-metre sprints would have garnered big numbers if carried live by NBC, as opposed to tape delayed. Would've been nice if they'd carried one of them live, so we could compare.

Bottom line, however, is this: North of the border live, south of the border delayed, it really doesn't seem to matter. The 2012 Olympic Games are gluing record numbers of eyeballs to television sets from Victoria, B.C., to Key West, Florida.

More London Olympics coverage on Yahoo! Canada Sports:
• Closing Ceremony details leaked, could be another impressive show
• Video: Usain Bolt blasts his way into history
• Photos: Hard hits of Olympic boxing