David Staples
David Staples is a veteran hockey columnist at the Edmonton Journal whose work combines close Edmonton Oilers analysis with strong views on coaching, management and the politics around sport. His reporting is built on detailed video and data review, long experience on the beat and a willingness to connect on-ice decisions to wider questions of team culture and public policy.
Edmonton Oilers and Cult of Hockey analysis
Staples is the driving voice behind the Cult of Hockey, the Edmonton Journal’s dedicated Oilers blog and podcast, where he focuses on game-by-game performance, roster construction and the team’s long-term trajectory. His X bio describes him as a founder of the Cult of Hockey and a “research expert” who has been reviewing every Grade A shot in Oilers games on video since 2010, underlining the granular approach behind his columns and podcasts. The OilersAggR author page positions him as a primary source for Oilers news and analysis, consolidating his Edmonton Journal and Cult of Hockey output in one stream.
Across those feeds he consistently zeroes in on how specific players, lines and tactics affect scoring chance balance and game outcomes, making his work distinct from box-score recaps.
Coaching, management and roster decisions
A recurring focus in Staples’ recent work is front-office decision-making, especially coaching changes, trade targets and contract strategy. In the anchor article on the Vegas Golden Knights and Mike Babcock, he treats coaching hires as league-wide reputational events and weighs their impact on the Oilers’ options, showing how he frames personnel moves within broader NHL dynamics. Yardbarker pieces referencing his columns highlight similar angles: one discusses whether the Oilers should consider signing Alex Formenton, arguing that the move “makes zero sense,” while noting Staples’ case for why the team might explore the option. Another summarizes his writing on a potential trade for Columbus winger Kirill Marchenko, including his attention to Marchenko’s past connection with Oilers forward Vasily Podkolzin, illustrating how he uses relationships and history to assess fit.
His X posts link back to Edmonton Journal stories on goalie trades and prospect promotions, such as his argument that instead of chasing an NHL goalie trade, the Oilers could promote Samuel Jonsson to the AHL to see his impact in a top minor league, reflecting his interest in internal development paths versus external moves.
League trends, Canadian teams and sports politics
Staples often situates the Oilers within league-wide and national trends, extending his beat beyond a single team.
A recent post amplifying an Edmonton Journal column about how the Oilers are “unlikely to be harmed by two trends hammering many Canadian teams” shows him examining macro factors such as economics, competitive balance or league rules and mapping them onto specific franchises. Professional profiles describe his work as covering sports alongside politics, culture and public policy, with particular interest in the intersection of government decisions and competitive sports or sports broadcasting.
This mix of themes leads to columns that treat arenas, public funding, media rights and regulatory decisions as part of the same story as wins, losses and trades, giving his coverage a broader context than a typical game report. He has also been identified as a provincial affairs columnist in addition to his sports role, which reinforces his comfort writing about policy debates connected to sport.
Format, tone and career depth
Staples works primarily as a columnist rather than a straight news reporter, and his pieces are structured around argument, interpretation and detailed supporting evidence.
The Cult of Hockey podcast, which credits him as creator and co-host, adds an audio format to that written work, where he and colleagues break down individual games and broader storylines for an engaged audience. His X activity shows him sharing headline arguments, key stats and video-backed opinions in real time, using social platforms to extend and test his columns.
Professional databases and profiles record tens of thousands of published articles and long-form features across sports, politics and culture, indicating a deep career with substantial output. Biographical summaries note that he has written books and long investigations that have received national journalism awards, which supports the sense that his sports writing is informed by investigative habits and narrative experience built over decades. Taken together, his profile is of a high-volume, opinion-forward hockey columnist whose distinctive value lies in detailed Oilers and NHL analysis framed within management decisions, league trends and the occasional political or policy dimension.
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