They say you can’t put the ketchup back in the bottle, but Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid would rather never take the bottle out to begin with.
“Honestly, you know, it stems from childhood,” McDavid said of his longstanding ketchup phobia during the Sunday, December 28, episode of Sportsnet After Hours. “My brother’s the same way. Not sure where it came from. I’m gonna blame it on him. He’s worse than I am. Yeah, I learned off him, so take it up with him.”
McDavid added that he doesn’t quite “know” what issue he has with the condiment, but noted, “The texture, it’s the look of it, it’s everything — yeah, I think it’s a phobia, yeah.”
Fans have known about McDavid’s ketchup quirk for a while now, with the official Heinz Canada Instagram account even poking fun at him in an October 2024 post by showing a bottle of ketchup with the text, “How about now, Connor?” over it.
“Think you can coach Connor through conquering his ketchup fear?” the caption read. “Sound off below. 🏒.”
The subject resurfaced recently when Connor’s wife, Lauren Kyle McDavid, brought it up during an appearance on the “Never Offside with Julie and Cat” podcast.
“He’s never even tried it, to be honest,” she said on the December 9 episode. “If I’m having it with a meal, I have to get it from the fridge; he will not put it back in the fridge or touch the bottle. It has to be at the other end. … He does think it’s funny, but he’s still afraid of ketchup; he just won’t have it.”
Unfortunately for Connor, opposing fans seem to have taken news of his phobia and run with it in hilarious fashion, showing up to games dressed as bottles of ketchup.
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“He’s seen [it], and I’m like, ‘I’m so sorry I exposed you on that show,’” Lauren said. “He does think it’s funny, and he’s still afraid of ketchup; he won’t have it.”
While Lauren had no problem ribbing her husband in front of a podcast audience, she also hasn’t held back in gushing over the man she’s loved for nearly a decade.
After going Instagram official in 2016, just months after McDavid’s rookie season, the Oilers star popped the question in June 2023.
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“I cannot put into words how happy I am to be spending the rest of our lives together,” Lauren wrote via Instagram at the time. “Almost 8 years of growth, happiness and so much love and I can’t believe we have so much more to look forward to.”
She continued, “I knew you were my person from the day we met and I can’t wait for the beautiful life we are going to create together. Thank you for the most thoughtful, picture perfect proposal that I could never have imagined. I love you more than anything. 🤍🤍.”
They tied the knot one year later in a ceremony on a private island in Ontario.
“Married the love of my life and it was the most perfect weekend I could ever imagine!” Lauren wrote via Instagram.