Kirk LaPointe: Canada’s two top sports superstars are dominating the rink and the court—all they’re missing is a champion’s crown

A couple of southern Ontario guys in their 20s happen to be the best in the world at their sports right now. One, maybe both, will be champions in a matter of days.

Hockey is Canada’s sport, but Canada is also a hotbed for hoops, and Connor McDavid (Richmond Hill) and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Hamilton) are emblematic of the excellence this country consistently produces in one sport and currently produces in the other. They are creative, cutting-edge athletes—the fastest when they are on their playing surfaces, the most audacious and anticipatory high-IQ performers—and they don’t so much appear on television as feed its highlight reels. See either in person and they are unforgettable: the edge of skate in McJesus and the plasticity of limb in SGA are poetic.

Now, of the two, McDavid has the far more pressing leadership role as the captain of the Edmonton Oilers, returning to the Stanley Cup Final for a rematch of last year’s sorrowful seventh-game loss to the Florida Panthers. Almost every hockey fan knows the Cup last belonged to a Canadian team in 1993, and almost every Canadian believes this would be a helluva year to take it back. McDavid scored the overtime winner in the recent 4 Nations Face-Off for Canada over the U.S., but this prize would be inarguably larger. Only Mark Carney securing us from Donald Trump has a more appreciable task and pressure.

The Oilers’ excellence is a case study on how a franchise can eventually dominate by first occupying rock bottom, and how the NHL (like the NFL and NBA, but not so much MLB) does almost everything it can to provide parity so even smaller markets like Edmonton, Winnipeg, Raleigh, and Ottawa can be better at times—like this season—than New York, Chicago, Boston, or Philadelphia.

With the Oilers being a laughing stock for years, they then seemed to win and win and win the lottery draw for the top junior hockey graduates to fill their roster affordably with entry-level contracts, and most of their choices have remained and slogged and gotten richer and finally propelled the team into the elite ranks.

Today, they have all the pieces they need to take it all.

Then again, so do the Panthers, and if it is an axiom that it is more difficult to defend than to win a sport’s championship, Florida hasn’t been in on the proverb. It looks the part of a confident, calm, dynastic franchise, unafraid of winning, much less losing; any time someone is injured, it seems the next man up is an improvement. Maybe it’s the jerseys, but it doesn’t appear as if anyone is less than about six-foot-two and 225 pounds, except Brad Marchand, traded from Boston at the trade deadline, who can’t wait to punch above his weight.

Neither team treated the regular season as much more than a training camp—the Oilers finished ninth, the Panthers 11th among the 32 teams—but few can deny they’re built for this and deserving of their return tilt.

With basketball, there is a formula worth remembering: OKC + SGA = NBA + MVP + 2024-25; this year’s Most Valuable Player trophy was Gilgeous-Alexander’s first, no reason for it to be his last. He scores from anywhere, shares the rock, is a defensive thief and foul grifter by exploiting weakness, and a pressure shooter. His Oklahoma City Thunder were the league’s best because of him—versatile and positionless—and on the odd night he is not superhuman, there are others for the other team to fear, like Jalen Williams or Chet Holmgren.

A fellow Canadian, Luguentz (Lu) Dort, was all-NBA defensively this season. The two ought to be a handful at the next Olympics, but in the meantime, these finals are the first in which a Canadian will lead the team, favoured by its league-best record to take the title. (Steve Nash, a two-time MVP, didn’t get past the Western Conference finals in his career.)

They face an Indiana Pacers team with two stars, former Raptors all-star Pascal Siakam and emerging superstar Tyrese Haliburton, and in most years, its trek through the first three rounds would favour them. But OKC is better rested, has cruised through the competition, and possesses all the offensive and defensive tools—to lose would be to be heavily upset.

There are economic chasms between the two major-league sports and their two best players of the moment. SGA, 26, earns $35 million USD and qualifies for a four-year deal at $73.5 million this year or a five-year deal at $76 million next year. McDavid, 28, earns $10 million USD and likely will fetch a record $20 million for his next contract at the end of the 2025-26 season.

Of the two finals, the NHL’s has the capacity to swing most on the basis of recent injuries and groove. Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner, for instance, has found his game; he was the most rickety leg of the team, but not at the moment. One of the team’s snipers, Zach Hyman, is gone for the year after an innocuous collision that broke his wrist. Florida’s Matthew Tkachuk hasn’t been himself since the 4 Nations early this year.

This is the 12th Stanley Cup Final rematch, the first since 2008-09. The past two featured Sidney Crosby and Wayne Gretzky winning their first Cups. Why not Connor’s, then?