Humboldt’s tragedy

Re: ‘It’s affected hockey people so hard’; April 16

I have spent the last week wrestling with my emotions over the tragedy, having a good cry every now and then, and feeling an incredible pride at the culture we as Canadians have built in the past and demonstrated in the last eight days.

I’m just another of the thousands of guys and girls who identify so closely to this. I rode those buses through minor hockey, major junior, college, and minor pro, and then on into a long series of years playing senior hockey in towns across Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Ontario. I know without a doubt that the experience of hockey and the people I encountered made me what I am.

I usually see myself as pretty stoic about tragedy — I spent 12 years in the RCMP and have been to my share of fatal accidents. None as bad as this, but doing a Next of Kin notification on Christmas Eve is a pretty awful experience. So I have learned to keep things bottled to some extent.

This past week I have been completely unable to do so. I know why, but am just now trying to address and express it.

That culture we are seeing, that heart of a small town, put your sticks out, play-the-next-shift thing we are experiencing, is so deep a part of me, and so many, many others that it has absolutely shaped how we see the world.

It has made us into a great and caring nation. We feel this so deeply, as many have already noted, because it is us. To steal from a great line Jim Bouton wrote, we spend all these years thinking we are gripping the stick. In fact, the stick is gripping us.

We are Canadians, it is what we do. John Saunders, Vancouver