The amazing thing about #PutYourSticksOut

They began popping up early this week. In cities and towns across Canada, hockey sticks were being leaned up outside the front doors of houses, apartments and dorm rooms. “Put your sticks out for the boys,” captured on social media as #PutYourSticksOut or #SticksOutForHumboldt, was a uniquely Canadian response to the tragedy that has left so many in this nation heartbroken.

It seems to have started with a single tweet from a TSN broadcaster who covers the Winnipeg Jets and went to school in Humboldt, Sask. He tweeted a picture he said a friend had sent him, of a stick left out by a front door, with a message reading, “Leaving it (the stick) out on the porch tonight. The boys might need it ... wherever they are.” It took off from there, and quickly spread beyond our borders. Sticks were left out in the United States, too. And in Europe. And leaned against the doors of the barracks of Canadian soldiers working to eliminate ISIL in Iraq.

It’s easy to be jaded about such things. The nationwide outpouring of grief and support for the families of the victims of last week’s terrible hockey-bus crash, and the survivors, was already flooding into Saskatchewan before the sticks began showing up. And it’s true there are probably a growing number of Canadians now awkwardly wondering when it will be socially acceptable to put their sticks back in their garage or basement storage rooms. But there’s still something genuinely wonderful about the gesture. It was sincere, spontaneous and simple. No one messaged this. It’s not sponsored by any brand. It’s just Canadians (and others) wanting to find some way to show they care.

That’s the most moving part of all. Putting out sticks won’t bring back the victims — who included not just boys, but men and, as of Wednesday, a young woman — or end the grief for their families, although we can only be grateful for any comfort that it provides them. Putting a stick out is a simple way of showing that we’re all hurting, together. In a divided and often fractious age, there isn’t a lot that brings us all together. An understated, particularly Canadian gesture of grief did exactly that this week. It was a thing to behold.