An Edmonton Oilers fan who has attended every home game for almost four years and drives a seven-hour round trip each time to cheer on his favourite team marked a milestone Monday night while helping a charity.
Trevor Weal took in his 200th Oilers home game in a row on Monday for the National Hockey League team’s win over the Anaheim Ducks.
Weal, whose nickname is McMullet — he colours his short-in-the-front-long-in-the-back hairstyle Oilers’ blue and orange for games — lives east of Calgary in Strathmore and drives three-and-a-half hours each way to watch games at Rogers Place.
He’s bought Oilers season tickets since the start of the 2022 postseason and hasn’t missed a game — playoffs, regular season or preseason — at the downtown arena since.
“I love Oilers hockey, I love watching hockey, so that’s a big thing, but now I’m at the point where this streak that I’ve started, I just want to keep it going,” said Weal, who grew up in Calahoo just west of Edmonton and owns an HVAC sheet-metal fabrication shop.
“The other big motivating thing is there are a lot of people who maybe only get to one game a year, and if they’re hoping to meet me at that one game a year, that’s huge for me. If I can bring a smile to somebody’s face, just because they got to come up and say ‘hi’ and take a picture, it’s amazing.”
To mark Game No. 200, Weal invited friends he’s “made along the way” for dinner before Monday’s game and brought along a couple of new ones, too — people who had donated money to the Ben Stelter Foundation for a chance to sit with him at Monday’s game.
The Oilers acknowledged Weal’s feat of 200 consecutive home games attended, too, presenting him with a special puck and broadcasting a first-intermission interview with him on the arena’s Jumbotron.
Dan Cote-Rosen, the vice-president of marketing for the Oilers Entertainment Group Sports and Entertainment, said Weal is “so emblematic of our truly passionate, super fans, and we’re so lucky to have him as a season seat holder.”
“I don’t think this team would exist without fans like McMullet,” Cote-Rosen told CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday. “I hope those drives don’t feel extra long if we haven’t had a great game here, but he always brings so much energy, and he’s such a die-hard fan. It’s a really great reminder of what this team means to fans in our community, throughout our country, and obviously throughout Alberta.”
Weal told CTV News Edmonton he decided to buy Oilers season tickets because, at the time, he had been sober for a year. He said his wife told him “to do something for yourself.”
“‘You’ve always wanted Oilers season tickets. You’ve saved a lot of money over the last year. It’s time to go out and do what you want to do,’” he recalls her telling him.
And now he helps others who, like him, have moved on from lives hampered by drugs and alcohol.
“I’ve met so many people in recovery as well who look up to me, who ask for help,” Weal said. “I sponsor a few people now because of this whole thing, so if I can help another person out, that’s what I’m going to continue to do.”
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With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nahreman Issa and Brandon Lynch
