TORONTO - There must've been a lot of Alt-Tabbing, panicked minimizing and cautious web surfing in offices across Canada on Thursday.

If you were surreptitiously streaming the men's hockey game between Canada and Norway while you should've be working you weren't the only one.

As much as 37 per cent of commercial and residential web traffic in Canada on Thursday afternoon was linked to streams of the highly anticipated hockey game, according to an analysis by the Waterloo, Ont.-based computer network company Sandvine.

Web traffic associated with streams of the game peaked around 2 p.m. ET during the third period.

The proportion of overall web traffic linked to Olympics streaming was up 50 per cent from what Sandvine observed during Wednesday's women's hockey game between Canada and the United States.

About 23 per cent of that morning's web traffic was tied to streams from the CBC.

Sandvine noted the levels of traffic generated by the men's hockey game on Thursday were close to what's typically seen during peak evening hours when consumers are at home and often streaming video.