Connor McDavid has a $100 million NHL career, but wife Lauren Kyle is building her own business empire through luxury design, fashion and hospitality ventures in Edmonton

Connor McDavid signed an eight-year, $100 million contract in 2017 and remains the face of the Edmonton Oilers. His wife, Lauren Kyle McDavid, has spent those years building a business base in the same city. She runs a design studio started in 2019, a furniture showroom, a downtown bar and a sportswear label, and her cookbook launched on January 30. In May she confirmed plans for a second Trove location in Texas. Few hockey spouses carry a résumé this broad, and almost all of it sits in Edmonton.How Lauren Kyle built a business empire beside Connor McDavid’s $100 million careerStart with the money, because it explains why this story is unusual. McDavid’s eight-year deal paid $12.5 million a year, and in October 2025 he signed a two-year, $25 million extension at the same annual figure. It runs from 2026-27 through 2027-28. Those are US dollars. A household with that income does not need a second paycheque. Lauren Kyle McDavid says she was always headed this way anyway. “I always knew I was going to be an entrepreneur,” she told The Canadian Press in June 2025, adding that this was true before she met Connor.She grew up in Sudbury, Ontario, with two brothers who played hockey. She was never much of a fan. She studied fine arts at the University of British Columbia, then interior design at Toronto Metropolitan University, the school once known as Ryerson. Her cousin introduced her to Connor around that time.Kyle and Co. Design Studio followed in 2019. The firm designed the couple’s Edmonton home and their Muskoka cottage, which gave her a visible portfolio before she opened a single storefront. They married on July 27, 2024, on a private island on Lake Muskoka.Think of the studio as the engine. Design clients led to furniture, furniture led to a venue, and the venue led to a brand. Each step used the last one as proof.What is inside Trove Living and Bar Trove?The biggest bet is a building. Kyle McDavid and business partner Brittany Schulz leased the long-vacant Canada Permanent Building in downtown Edmonton, an Edwardian Baroque landmark. Her design studio anchors the top floor. Below it sit Trove Living, a furniture showroom of about 9,000 square feet that represents European brands, and Bar Trove, a 40-seat cocktail lounge serving small plates.Schulz had worked as an outside furniture rep for the design business, so the partnership grew out of a working relationship, not a celebrity pairing. The mix makes sense on paper. Design advice, products and a place to sit all share one address, which gives a client a reason to stay longer.The venue opened on June 6, 2025, after an influencer media night with a red carpet and a DJ. The timing was brutal. The Oilers were in the Stanley Cup Final against Florida, and Kyle McDavid watched Game 5 from a spot by the bar’s fireplace. She planned to stand there again for Game 6, in the same heels and with the same red handbag, while other Oilers partners watched on a projected wall. Florida won the series.Locals noticed anyway. Quinn Phillips of the Edmonton Downtown Business Association said, “Everything is kind of buzzing now in downtown.” Her colleague Puneeta McBryan, the group’s executive director, said a big celebrity name investing in the core is huge for the area.How Sports Club Atelier turned playoff jackets into a fashion labelSports Club Atelier started as a favour. Kyle McDavid told Daily Hive she was handed the job of making playoff jackets for the women around the Oilers, and she found she loved it. She also spotted a gap. Fans like her wanted clothes that looked good at games, and the market offered little.The label launched in 2025. Its Oilers line, the Foundry Collection of jackets and accessories, dropped before that spring’s playoffs. Hockey Canada merchandise followed. By May 2026 the brand had its NHL licence, a Liquid I.V. collaboration planned around the Montreal Grand Prix and a Stella Artois project for Wimbledon in July. She also said talks with baseball teams were under way.The jackets matter more than they look. Kyle McDavid says she designs each one imagining it hanging in her closet for her future kids. She thinks of them as markers of a year, a team and a playoff run. That sentimental angle is what separates a keepsake from merchandise.Cheri Bradish, director of the Future of Sport Lab, told The Canadian Press that Kyle McDavid’s ties to the NHL have helped her earn money from her work. Bradish also said she deserves credit for her own background in design and business. Both points can be true at once.Why Edmonton, and what comes next for Kyle McDavidWhy build all of this in Edmonton and not Toronto or Vancouver? Her answer is practical. “There’s not a huge market saturation in Edmonton for different businesses,” she told Daily Hive. She sees gaps to fill, and she says people there like new things.She is also direct about the life around it. People assume being a hockey wife is easy because the husbands are well paid, she told The Canadian Press, but she said the stress and the strain on families are real. She sees a parallel between her role and his. He captains a team, she manages employees, and both, she said, learn from mistakes by finding the gaps and fixing them.The newest product is a book. The Atelier Table launched on January 30, 2026, and runs past 300 pages. Menus are built for six and organized around occasions such as girls’ night, game day and brunch. Each comes with advice on styling the table, which ties the cookbook back to her design roots. Her spicy lobster pasta, a recipe she created herself, was set to appear on Bar Trove’s menu.Texas is the next stop. Reports so far give no address or opening date, and none of her companies has made revenue public. “Empire” describes the range of her work for now. The financials remain private.Get the latest Sports News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.