I Bought A Ticket To The Connor McDavid Show And A Hurricanes Game Broke Out

EDMONTON, Alberta — While fans of the Calgary Flames are steeling themselves to say goodbye to the Saddledome at the end of the 2026–27 season, their rivals to the north are worried about a different kind of countdown. Connor McDavid, the franchise center who's piloted the Edmonton Oilers to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals, may or may not leave town when the extension he signed before this season expires in the summer of 2028. Either way, by god does this city want to celebrate a Cup before his era eventually comes to a close.

The 29-year-old has already earned a trophy case full of individual awards that attest to his greatness, and he can exhibit them in his unspeakably chilling home if he so wishes. But the NHL's assists and points leader (yet again) is special in a more tactile sense when you see him live. Hockey is kind of strange for the way it cloaks the vast majority of its players in anonymity. Even serious attendees paying attention to the action would be hard pressed to rattle off the names of all the guys on the ice at a given moment, because the game is very fast and no one stays on the ice for long and the skaters all look basically the same from far away. But in the four games I've seen McDavid play live—three on the road and one, on Friday, at home—he stands out, in part because the folks in the seats seem primed to exclaim his name as soon as he touches the puck. I noticed it again as the Oilers took on the Carolina Hurricanes: He calmly moved through the neutral zone with possession as two voices on opposite sides of my section shouted "McDavid!" In opposing venues, some goofuses might be more likely to yelp "McJesus!", but that counts too.

They do it because special things tend to happen when the puck is on McDavid's stick. He is extraordinarily fast. He contains amusement-park spin moves. He expertly plays the role of Knife opposite the defense's Butter. And sometimes he is just magic personified.