Broncos have bonded us all

Like most Canadians, Katie Nedjelski just wants to help Humboldt heal.

So she jumped in her car and headed east of Calgary. She headed home. To Humboldt. While Canadians most certainly feel a bond with the tiny town, her ties run much deeper.

Her brother, Joey Eaton, won a Royal Bank Cup with the Broncos in 2003 and she met her husband, Sheldon, in the late ’90s when he, too, played for the local heroes.

Her family is so entrenched in the fabric of Humboldt that her father, Malcolm Eaton, was a threeterm mayor from 2006 to 2016.

They were Broncos billets for over a decade.

After a week of watching the world reach out to give Humboldt hugs, her heart toldheritwastimetohuddle up back home.

“I think it was just easy for me to come and help out, whatever that looks like,” said Nedjelski, who brought her youngest of two kids, three-year-old Finley, for the journey.

“Several of the kids my parents billeted have been coming back with their families and young kids the last week. People just want to be together, helping.

“Every store in town has a jersey or a sign in the window and everyone is pitching in.”

In a beautiful twist, the bus tragedy that claimed 16 lives 10 days ago has had the effect of being the country’s most unifying event of a generation.

It’s hard to believe anyone on your street or at your office didn’t either contribute to the $12 million in GoFundMe donations, put a stick in front of their house or wear a jersey last Thursday.

With every door-front stick you drive by, your heart swells a little.

Many of the people you passed last week wearing a jersey likely prompted a smile, a thumbs-up or conversation with strangers that wouldn’t ordinarily be exchanged.

It brought our communities that much closer together, regardless of postal code.

Charity hockey games for Humboldt were played all over Canada on the weekend, with plenty more yet to come.

Vigils, rallies and even funerals in the hometowns of players and staff on the bus attracted larger than expected crowds of people showing they care.

Bake sales, family skates, 50/50 proceeds and countless other initiatives are in the works as people offer up any sort of assistance they can provide.

NHL and junior teams held stirring tributes for the Broncos, as did fans as far away at England, where chants of “Let’s Go Broncos” rang out in the EIHL final.

Old teammates from every possible sport felt the need to reconnect, inevitably reminding one another, “it could have been us,” or “those could have been our kids.”