Nothing brings people together like the love of hockey, and that couldn’t be more true for Gabriel Candido, a Brazilian man who might just be Brazil’s biggest Edmonton Oilers fan.
“It’s hard to find people in Brazil who like ice hockey,” Candido told Global News via Zoom from his home in Curitiba, Brazil.
“We are few, but we have other fans in tropical countries like Brazil.”
Coming from a soccer-crazed country, Candido’s passion for hockey is rare and, like many Canadians, it did not come from a typical family upbringing. It originated from a TV show.
A few years ago Candido was watching the following episode: Everyone hates ChrisIt is an American sitcom created by Chris Rock and Ali LeRoi.
In this episode, Drew, a young hockey-loving character, receives a gift from his father: a hockey jersey. But my dad buys the uniform from a man selling counterfeit goods in the neighborhood. Instead of a No. 99 Gretzky jersey, Drew was gifted a “Gritzky” jersey with the number 98 emblazoned on the back.
“This episode is so famous here in Brazil,” Candido said. “That’s one of the reasons I became an Oilers fan.”
Candido now has his own “Gritzky” jersey.
Candido, who was in his early teens at the time, said his love for the game grew when a friend invited him to play what he thought was an NFL video game. The video game turned out to be an NHL game.
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“When I played the NHL game, I was like, ‘This is amazing.’ It’s so cool to see them skating on the ice and trying to score goals… Sometimes fights break out. It’s really amazing. ‘I want to know more.’
“The only people I recognized among them were the Oilers. Everyone hates Chris illustration.”
Candido began his research. There he learned everything about the Oilers dynasty of the 1980s.
“When I saw Gretzky, Jari Khoury, Mark Messier and Grant Poore in the 80s dynasty, I thought, ‘This is a really great team.’”
Alas, his love for hockey, and especially the Oilers, was born.
Like many other Oilers fans, Candido “suffered a lot” through the “dark decade.” In Brazil, he watched the team begin a rebuild and draft players like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Connor McDavid.
He vividly remembers watching Sam Gagner score eight points in a game against the Chicago Blackhawks in February 2012 when he was 12 years old.
Now Candido is active on social media and leads a WhatsApp group made up of Oilers fans from all over Brazil. He also uses the platform to reach new hockey fans.
“I always like talking about the team.”
Candido lives three hours ahead of Edmonton, which means some playoff games in rounds one and two didn’t start until after 11:30 p.m. But he still didn’t miss a game.
“I would go to bed at 2 or 3 a.m. and wake up at 7 a.m.,” he said.
“The Dallas Stars series, the Western Conference series starts earlier. So it would start around 9pm which would be perfect for us. “I think it’s better than starting at 6pm, which is the start time in Edmonton.”
Candido, who continues to cheer on his team from afar, hopes for nothing more than to come to Edmonton one day to watch the Oilers play on home ice.
“I really want to see Connor McDavid, Draisaitl, Hyman, and Rogers Place someday. Now this is my top destination,” Candido said.
“I’ve never seen temperatures like -40 degrees Celsius or -30 degrees Celsius, so I definitely want to go there in winter.” He added with a smile that the temperature in Curitiba was over 20 degrees.
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