Big Read: What's It Like to Be Connor McDavid?

Big Read: What's It Like to Be Connor McDavid?

“CONNOR. CONNOR. Connor.” Kids chase McDavid and adults either follow or encourage them to pick it up and run him down on the concourse of the Colisée. The Memorial Cup semifinal between the Kelowna Rockets and the host Québec Remparts is tied one-all after the first period and McDavid has to make his way from his seat to the upper bowl where the panel’s desk and cameras are set up.

He stops. He signs. Cameras flash. The crowd buzzes and swells. This is the lot of the selfless star in the age of the selfie.

McDavid has mixed feelings, not just about being a celebrity but about celebrity itself. At some level he just doesn’t understand the fascination—never has. In the McDavid home, there’s a picture of Connor standing between Nos. 66 and 87 on a trip from Erie to Pittsburgh. That one is kept out in the open. But there’s another, more telling shot somewhere around the house, in a drawer or a box: Connor age 10 with Mario at the Quebec Peewee tournament, back when he was playing with the York-Simcoe Express. His father coached the team that season and in the hallway outside the dressing room before a game, Brian saw kids lining up to get their pictures taken with No. 66 like tourists with Bonhomme de Neige. Brian went in the room and told Connor he should go out and get one for himself. Connor balked. “We have a game to get ready for,” he said. Brian told him it was OK. Connor said it wasn’t. It went back and forth until finally Brian physically picked his son up and carried him out to the hall, plopping him beside Lemieux. At that point, Connor realized that he couldn’t make a scene, but he stood there only long enough for the photo, the smiling Hall of Famer next to an unimpressed 10-year-old doing Grumpy Cat.