McDavid’s dad looking forward to Connor’s life getting back to normal
Connor McDavid played 66 junior games for the Erie Otters this season and seven more at the world junior championship. Even when the hockey stopped, there was more to do.
McDavid went to Quebec City for the CHL awards, Buffalo for the NHL scouting combine, Edmonton for a visit and then South Florida for the NHL draft. This week, he’s back in Edmonton for the Oilers development camp, his first time on the ice in that orange and blue, and on Friday agreed to terms on his threeyear entry-level contract.
Amid all the excitement of a new chapter, McDavid’s father is looking forward to his youngest son going home to Newmarket, Ont., next week and resuming life as a normal teenager.
“He’s had such a busy sched- ule the last, oh gosh, I can’t even tell you when he’s had any real significant downtime,” Brian McDavid said in a phone interview this week. “I’m really looking forward to next Tuesday when he gets back and he can sort of resume some semblance of a normal schedule, as normal as it ever gets for him where he can sort of be around, see his friends, get up to the cottage with us on the weekends.”
McDavid has had a spotlight on him for years, which helped prepare the McDavid family for the circus that was coming. His father said he was fortunate to know some people who played in the NHL, so the whirlwind of events even after Connor’s junior career wasn’t a surprise.
“It sort of just goes with the territory,” Brian McDavid said. “It’s cool, mind you, I have to tell you that. It’s very cool. But it’s not shocking all the things that are happening.”
Talked about as the next Sidney Crosby or Wayne Gretzky, McDavid has looked poised at every turn of this journey. Television cameras may have caught an unflattering look on his face when the Oilers won the draft lottery, but the reserved, genuine 18-year-old insisted that was no slight to the team lucky enough to draft him.
“Connor’s probably said it better than anybody: There’s no bad places to play in the NHL,” Brian said.
“He’s realizing his dream, and he’ll be treated well and he’ll live in a good place. Yeah I think he’s going to be more than fine.”