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Sports are connecting families in more ways than one this Mother’s Day.
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The day for honoring mothers also happens to be the same day the Oilers take on the Los Angeles Kings in Game 4 of the NHL playoffs, and for moms who are also Oilers fans, that is another reason to celebrate.
Ashton Rudanec likes to say her 18-month-old son was born a fan of the Oilers. While he was still in the womb, she had already bought him Oilers gear.
“His baby photoshoot was him with a mini Stanley Cup replica and a ‘Cujo’ helmet,” she said.
“He used to call it ‘ha-ha’ before he could say ‘hockey’ and now he can clearly say hockey, and he’s grown up watching it with us and playing in the basement with his Oilers mini sticks, so it’s kind of something we can all share together as a family.”
For Mother’s Day, Rudanec said her husband had something planned for her, while the family will also visit their moms and Rudanec’s grandmother.
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But after a weekend of visiting, time will still be made to sit down, maybe with some pizza, and watch the Oilers battle the Kings, coming off an 8-2 win on Friday.
Kate Faught is another lifelong Oilers fan who planned to carve out time to watch Sunday’s game. But first, as mothers do, she had to ferry her three children to their own respective sports games.
Growing up, Faught was always an Oilers fan — especially Wayne Gretzky — and has photos of herself as a six-year-old decked out in the team’s jersey. Now her kids de ella are all fans, and she managed to convert her husband de ella, who was originally from southern Alberta, into a fan as well.
On Friday, her neighborhood even put together a watch party for the game.
Both Rudanec and Faught said it’s great to see the city coming together to cheer on the team.
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“We’re really excited, we did this in the last playoff round that wasn’t during COVID, we just made such good memories,” Faught said. “It was amazing to see how the Oilers bring together a neighborhood.”
But before the Sunday game, her kids have soccer, ball hockey, and flag football to attend.
“There’s not too much time for anything else almost until game time,” Faught said. “But my mom, her tradition of her is KFC, so we’ll probably try to sneak in some fried chicken somewhere in the day.”
But Faught loves watching her kids enjoy their sports.
“As a mom, I’m so lucky that my kids are healthy enough to be able to do that stuff, too,” she said.
Rudanec, meanwhile, jokes that her son may be the next Connor McDavid because he will take sticks from outside and handle them like a hockey stick. But at the end of the day, she just wants him to have fun.
“That’s I think what hockey does and what these sports do, just the love of a game, the love of sports and really the love of community is what the central message is behind cheering on teams like the Edmonton Oilers, and that’s the message I want him to get, it’s about community at the end of the day.”