Home / News / Connor McDavid wore a shoelace-belt to the NHL Awards. Here’s why you shouldn’t chirp him about it.

Connor McDavid wore a shoelace-belt to the NHL Awards. Here’s why you shouldn’t chirp him about it.

By Brennin Weiswerda

 2 Comments

June 23, 2019 5:39 pm

No, seriously. Stop chirping Connor McDavid about his fashion choices. Yes, he wore a suit to the NHL Awards and looked like he used a skate lace as a belt and tied it with a big floppy bow. And yes, his skinny tie looks like it may, in fact, be a belt. It quickly went viral on Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit.

Maybe McDavid is trolling all of us with his tied-belt and belt-tie. Maybe he’s just having fun with his fashion. Either way: that’s okay.

The NHL is critically lacking in sartorial creativity. Compared to other leagues, like the NBA, players express themselves through what they choose to wear. But in “the NHL, you guys slash each other if you try to stand out,” writes Steve Marsh in his GQ feature of Connor McDavid in September 2018, titled Connor McDavid Is Done Being Chirped At.

“If your hair is too nice, or not nice enough, you’ll get chirped,” Marsh said. “It’s like an enforced humility, and it’s violently enforced.”

In return McDavid talked about coming into the league with the typical 18-year-old athlete’s sense of fashion: toting around his OHL Erie Otter’s bag until his teammates chirped (teased) him into upgrading.

But being too fashion-forward can be as bad as being out-of-style.

“In hockey, there’s definitely that middle ground where you need to be,” McDavid said, “and as soon as you get out of the middle, you start getting chirped again.”

Which brings us to Connor McDavid in the year of our awards 2019, statistically incapable of staying safely in the middle of the pack. He was nominated for the Ted Lindsay Award and the Hart Trophy: he was in the spotlight and on camera.

And. Yeah.

It sure looked like he was wearing a skate lace for a belt.

McDavid’s suit was from Eleventy, an Italian clothing company, so his belt/string/thing can be credited to (or blamed on) them. Toronto Maple Leafs’ center Nazem Kadri is also a fan of the brand.

While much talk has centered on the shoelacebelt not much attention has been paid to his tie.

The line between belt and tie is a thin one. A tad skinner than a skinny tie, but, not to put too fine a point on it, the blunt end definitely screams “I’M A KNIT BELT IN DISGUISE.”

“They like this drawstring thing (at the waistband),” McDavid said to NHL.com. “And this is a knit tie. I’m very comfortable. It’s about as comfortable as you can get.”

Sadly, neither the drawstring thing nor the knit tie were available on the site. And they don’t deliver to the US or Canada.

Foiled again in our attempts to be more like Connor McDavid…

McDavid said to GQ that standing out is too dangerous a risk for him to take, and the criticism he’s received for a “comfortable” chic Italian trend-setting isn’t likely to encourage future flashiness. But McDavid is better than most of us–in many ways, especially hockey–but in this case, in living-and-letting-live.

Instead of slamming the style of flashier, fashion-forward players like PK Subban and Henrik Lundqvist, he admires it.

“I’m definitely not one of those guys that’s chirping the guys that dress super nice,” McDavid said, “because you know, there’s guys out there in the league—and on my team in fact—that have great style. And I’m just like, ‘go for it, man, you look good!'”

Also, the Capitals’ 2019 first round draft pick, Connor Mc[Michael], wore the string-thing-belt too which means it’s cool with RMNB now.

Go for it, man. You look good.

, ,