Young Oilers fan gets trip of a lifetime

By Mark Ribble

LEAMINGTON — Easter weekend 2022 will be one to remember for 10-year-old Christopher Kok of Leamington and his family.

Christopher is a lifelong super fan of Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers and his wish of seeing an Oilers game in person came true this past weekend.

Since Edmonton is two hours behind us, young Christopher’s issue has always been fighting to stay awake to see his beloved team play but a few weeks ago, a rare 7 pm Eastern game-time allowed him to actually catch a whole game.

“We watched him with all of his memorabilia watching the game and saw how excited he was,” said his father Mike. “We decided then that he needed to get to a game.”

Edmonton Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft took a moment for a photo with Christopher Kok.

Kok family photo

So Mike and his wife Marina started looking for flights that would coincide with a Saturday game so they could make their son’s dream come true.

They chose the Easter weekend game, which gave them time to get to Edmonton on Friday and enjoy the atmosphere. It would be Christopher’s first time on a plane.

Mike, Marina, Christopher and his sister Addison boarded a flight west on Good Friday morning and arrived in Edmonton Friday afternoon.

They attended the game Saturday and watched the Oilers shut out the Vegas Golden Knights 4-0.

Christopher was in his glory watching all the excitement at Rogers Place Arena and got to meet Edmonton coach Jay Woodcroft before the game.

A sign saying “I travelled 2,600 kms from Leamington Ontario to see my Oilers” was created and as the family sat in the concourse area, an Oilers PR person noticed it and snapped a photo, which ended up on the Oilers’ Twitter feed.

Meanwhile in the rink, the Koks managed to get Christopher’s sign noticed by Oilers forward Zack Kassian, who himself spent time in Leamington as a child.

All-in-all it was a whirlwind Easter weekend for the Kok family, but nobody had a bigger smile than Christopher, who got to see his Oilers win in person and that made for a perfect Easter weekend.