PAIR OF ACES TEAM UP
McDavid, Wiggins soar
They are both Toronto-area prodigies, anointed as Canada’s next great hope in their chosen sport, as familiar as one can be with the incredible heap of scrutiny and expectations such a title carries.
Connor McDavid and Andrew Wiggins are also very young.
Stepping into the gym of St. Michael’s College School on Tuesday afternoon, they looked like oversized students — closer in age, at 18 and 20, to the middle school basketball team watching them from the stands than many opponents they will face next season.
Both players — McDavid the NHL’s first overall draft pick this June, and Wiggins the NBA’s reigning rookie of the year — were in Toronto to promote a new commercial partnership, an event billed as their first public appearance together.
“I think we’re in similar situations,” McDavid said, as the two addressed reporters and the eager basketball players.
They are close in ability and stature: both, even at the extreme outset of their careers, were drafted as potential franchise-altering stars, Wiggins ending up with the Minnesota Timberwolves and McDavid to the Edmonton Oilers. If they have not yet reached stardom, get- ting there seems like a formality, especially after the seasons they just had.
Wiggins withstood an uncer- tain summer, and then thrived. He was dealt to Minnesota last August from the Cleveland Cava- liers, then played in every regular season game, averaging 16.9 points and earning MVP honours in the NBA’s rookie-sophomore All-Star Game, to go along with his rookie of the year title.
All McDavid did, meanwhile, was finish third in OHL scoring — even though he missed nearly a third of the season while guiding Canada to world junior gold — and drag his Erie Otters team to the league final, before becoming the most anticipated NHL draft pick in a decade.
How, then, do you prepare for a followup?
“Just training every day,” McDavid said. “Obviously, he has an Olympic qualifying (tournament) coming up. I don’t have anything like that coming up, so I’m just getting ready for training camp and trying to be the best that I can be.”
Indeed, Wiggins is expected to play for Canada later this month at the FIBA Americas tournament — a gateway, for the two finalists to the 2016 Olympics. More Canadians played in the NBA last season than any other country, other than the United States. Wiggins is the fulcrum of that resurgence.
McDavid’s rookie task will be to transform a sorrowful Oilers team. He joins Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov in Edmonton’s cluster of first overall picks since 2010.
As such, their load is set to increase on the court and ice — and off both surfaces, too. Tuesday’s event was held in tandem with BioSteel Sports, a sports nutrition company featuring McDavid and Wiggins in its latest marketing campaign.
“Obviously, as you grow up and move on, there’s more obligation that comes with that,” McDavid said, responding to a question about dabbling in commercials.
“Could I ever have imagined it when I was a young guy? Not really.”