The Ottawa Senators’ quest for the Stanley Cup has not been as exciting to English-Canadian hockey fans as last year’s series, with CBC recording an overall drop in viewers two games into the final. And yet viewership among French Quebecers is up.

Monday’s broadcast of game one between the Sens and the Anaheim Ducks grabbed an average 2.6 million viewers, down from three million for the first game in 2006, featuring the Edmonton Oilers and Carolina Hurricanes.

But things did improve for the low-scoring game two, which nabbed nearly 2.4 million viewers on Wednesday, up from last year’s 2.1 million. Audiences peaked between 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. ET at 2.9 million. The Ducks now lead the best of seven series 2-0.

To date, CBC is averaging nearly 2.5 million viewers for the Stanley Cup final, down 5% from the first two games in 2006.

TSN’s French sister RDS, meanwhile, is enjoying a 20% increase in viewers from last year’s first two games of the final, scoring 572,000 and 540,000 viewers, respectively.

‘We are very happy with those results that reflect the kind of increase we had during the regular season as well,’ RDS spokesperson Philippe Malo tells Playback Daily.