Hockey is wonderful and cruel

On Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, Connor McDavid, and why we love sports

Otters,

I know you don’t like it when I talk about hockey but this time I have an actual reason to do so.

Don’t know if you heard but last night was Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Already a big deal in its own right. Kids shooting pucks in the driveway are always thinking it’s Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Hell, when I used to shoot pucks in our driveway, I’d do the same thing. But last night it actually happened.

What made it especially crazy was that with a win last night, the Edmonton Oilers would’ve completed the extremely rare reverse sweep: going 3-0 down in the series, then coming all the way back to win the next 4.

Which has only happened once in NHL history—and that was all the way back in 1942.

Suffice to say last night was one of, if not the biggest game the NHL has ever seen. The stakes have never been crazier, Olympic gold medal games aside. Imagine! The Florida Panthers, after coming up short in last season’s final to the Vegas Golden Knights, losing a second straight final in the most chokejob-possible way. Imagine!

Here in Canada, the wave of momentum surrounding the Oilers during their historic playoff run was infectious. The city of Edmonton basically shut down. Not that there’s anything to do in Deadmonton.

People like me who normally wouldn’t cheer for the Oilers decided to hop on the bandwagon, and rightfully so since a Canadian team hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since 1993. It gave us something significant to cheer for. And after my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs lost in overtime of game 7 of their first-round matchup against the Boston Bruins… rooting for the Oilers gave me something to live for.

At the start of the year so many people picked the Oilers to win it all, but they had to fire their coach and hire a new one after unexpectedly languishing near the bottom of the league standings. They somehow fought their way back into the playoffs, dispatching the LA Kings in 5 games, then the Vancouver Canucks in 7 and the Dallas Stars in 6.

I found it easy to root for Edmonton since there wasn’t a single guy on the Florida Panthers I actually liked. The Oilers, like any good hockey team should, had heart and grit and desire, plus two of the best players on the planet: Leon Draisaitl, perhaps the most talented hockey player to ever emerge from Germany, and Newmarket, Ontario’s Connor McDavid, perhaps the most talented hockey player we’ve ever seen, like, ever, and I’m not even exaggerating.

People who don’t watch hockey love Connor McDavid. As good as his aforementioned teammate Draisaitl is, as good as Matthews and MacKinnon and Crosby are, no one has that exact combination of speed and skill and desire to win. A recipe so rare it’s generational. Writing about McDavid is kinda like writing about Messi—words alone don’t do him justice. You have to close your eyes and use your ears, listen to the crowd pop once the puck is on his stick in the offensive zone, and then you have to quickly open your eyes again to watch magic happen. It’s sleight of hand the likes of which our sport has never seen. Blink and you’ll miss it.

The best way to truly grasp McDavid’s artistry is in person, but you and I don’t have that kind of money, so you should make an effort next season to watch the Oilers when they’re on national TV, or clips of him on YouTube if you really have to. Whatever you do, find a way to watch Connor McDavid be Connor McDavid. Because there is nothing like watching him whizz across the blue line during an Oilers rush, dance through two defensemen (or hell, three or four guys, which is basically the whole team) like they’re pylons, then deke the goalie and deftly push the puck into a gaping cage and across the goal line; or, perhaps he may throw a blind backhand saucer cross-crease pass and above opposing player sticks to an open teammate for a tap-in.

Kind of like this:

The expectation on this guy to be the best in the world has persisted since he was 13. But no one is harder on McDavid than himself, and he seems to get better every year.

As good as he is during the regular season—this year he put up 100 assists, becoming only the 4th ever player to do so—McDavid managed to elevate his game during these playoffs, breaking Wayne Gretzky's record for most assists in one playoff year. He also became the first player to record back-to-back games with four points or more during the Stanley Cup Finals. They gave him the Conn Smythe Trophy for Playoff MVP last night… becoming only the second skater from the losing team to win the award since the 70s.

Oh. Yeah. I should mention. The Oilers lost last night.

How sweet it would’ve been to see them pull off such a miraculous comeback. To watch the parade in Edmonton. And they almost did it. They were one goal away.

It is such a bummer. All these annoying, physical, warm-climate, low-tax American teams winning every year! Tampa Bay, Colorado, Vegas, and now Florida. What gives? When does the misery end?

32 teams in a hard salary cap league—winning the Stanley Cup is one of the hardest things to do in sports. There are no one-game playoffs like in the NFL. To make it to the final is a miracle in itself. In fact, the Panthers are a reminder of just how hard winning is. Few teams have done more winning over the last three years and they easily could’ve lost last night if it wasn’t for some airtight defence and a helluva lot of puck luck. The Oilers came as close as you can possibly get, put it all on the line, McDavid and Draisaitl gave it everything they had, and it still wasn’t enough.

Now the offseason and free agency are upon us, and the Oilers have a lot of decisions to make. Hell, their general manager, the guy who makes most of those decisions—his contract expires on July 1st. In five days!

How does a run like this change the way the Oilers look next season? Because there’s no guarantee they’ll be back in the final next year. Not in the slightest. Now the Oilers have to grind through yet another useless and boring preseason, yet another 82-game regular season, plus win three brutally taxing playoff series just to get back to the final. And then they have to win the final!

There’s no guarantee that Connor McDavid is going to have a shot this good at the Cup ever again, even if he goes to play for another team, and that just breaks my heart. Last night I went to bed so angry, thinking sports were just proof that nothing matters, and also that evil exists, persists, is everywhere.

But then this morning I woke up and everything was okay again. McDavid is only 27. There’s always next year, innit. Come October, of us idiotic sports fanatics will return to our TV screens with newfound hope and optimism and belief in the impossible. And why not believe when the impossible literally almost happened last night?