Sometimes, you just got to mix it up a little bit.
That’s what Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid and his teammates did Thursday night, touching the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl after punching their ticket to the Stanley Cup Final for a second straight year.
The Oilers won the game 6-3, racking up three goals in the first 10 minutes of the game, staving off push after push from the Dallas Stars.
After the clock hit zero and the Oilers and Stars shook hands, McDavid was called alongside NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly to pose for a photo with the bowl, where he put his hands on it. That’s a difference from last year, when nobody from the team touched the bowl.
May 29, 2025; Dallas, Texas, USA; The Edmonton Oilers pose with the trophy after winning the Western Conference Final of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
His teammates crowded him around the bowl, but not before a few other players stopped to touch it, which was first handed out to the winner of the Western Conference in 1968. Leon Draisaitl, Evander Kane, and Kasperi Kapanen were among those who laid hands on it, as seen by Sportsnet’s broadcast.
In an interview with Gene Principe, McDavid said he didn’t come in with a plan of whether or not he would touch it.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen when I got up there,” he said. “We didn’t last year, give it a go this year.”
A longstanding tradition — if you could call it that — is that teams never touch the Clarence S. Campbell Bowl, or the Prince of Wales Trophy (handed out to the winner of the Eastern Conference). Why? Well, some in the sport believe it’s a jinx, as the Stanley Cup is the one trophy that all players want to be able to hoist.
But there’s been many teams who have touched the conference and gone on to win the Stanley Cup, The Hockey Writers’ Kelly O’Donnell noted in 2015. Among them, Denis Potvin and the New York Islanders in 1982 and 1983, Mario Lemieux and the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and 1992, including the likes of Mark Messier, Steve Yzerman, and Joe Sakic.
Can McDavid and the Oilers be the next?
Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.
