Community says goodbye to bus crash victims
Families, friends say goodbye to crash victims
Fifty-third Avenue is a fiveblock stretch of road in Stony Plain, Alta., running past some churches, a post office, a bed and breakfast and ending at the Glenn Hall Centennial Arena, a rink named after a famous goalie. On Sunday afternoon, the Glenn Hall was a gathering place for those come to mourn another goalie, Parker Tobin, of the Humboldt Broncos.
Tobin was initially mistaken for a teammate and believed to have survived the horrific bus crash at an intersection outside of Tisdale, Sask., an unspeakable error. Where so many families have spoken publicly of their loved ones in the days since, the Tobins have asked for privacy and space to grieve.
On Sunday, the trees along 53rd Avenue were wrapped with yellow and green ribbons with hockey sticks leaning against their trunks, a tribute to an 18-year-old known to be a remarkably bad dancer — and a remarkably good teammate and friend.
At another rink about six hours drive east in Allan, Sask., another group of mourners, many wearing Broncos sweaters, streamed into a community complex to pay tribute to Logan Schatz. Humboldt’s blondhaired captain dreamed of landing a hockey scholarship to an American college. He fancied wearing bow ties on game days, and would buy a coffee for a complete stranger, just because.
“He was just an outgoing kid," Logan’s father, Kelly, told Postmedia last week. "Everyone respected him."
On Saturday morning at St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church in Humboldt, friends and family came to say goodbye to Brody Hinz, the Broncos volunteer statistician. Brody had Asperger’s syndrome — a form of autism. It didn’t stop him from becoming a two-sport Special Olympian, in bowling and floor hockey. Brody had a keen mind for mathematics and an utter devotion to hockey, reflected as far back as the eighth grade (and beyond), when he wrote a letter to his principal requesting “they please consider shutting down” school for the day since it was the NHL trade deadline.
“Brody would have been fascinated by the love and outpouring of support for the Humboldt Broncos,” Cory Popoff, a family friend, told mourners during the service. Brody was different, but no one treated him as different, Popoff added. He played three years of high school football. He loved riding the bus — and doing stats for the Broncos.
At the Nicholas Sheran Ice Centre in Lethbridge, Alta., a crowd chanted Logan Boulet’s name. They gave him a standing ovation. They spoke of his life. On the day of the crash, Boulet’s parents, Bernie and Toby, were among the first families to arrive at a Nipawin church where people were waiting for news. Soon after, they were at Logan’s bedside at Saskatoon’s Royal University Hospital, where their son was kept on life support until his organs could be donated.
“He’s a hero,” family friend Brian Friesen told the service. Boulet’s casket was covered in flowers. Hockey sweaters, reaching back to when he was a child, were displayed nearby.
Back in Humboldt, at the Elgar Petersen Arena, coach Darcy Haugan was remembered by pastor Sean Brandow, a close friend, for being someone who always “sought to do what was right.”
Brother-in-law Adam George remembered the 42-year-old as a coach with clear priorities. Not to win at all costs, but to win the battle for character, instilling in players a desire to live a life full of “integrity.” Seven of those players, wearing their Humboldt Broncos jerseys, including one in a wheelchair, attended the service.
With each passing funeral — there will be 16 in all — more stories will be told by the living about the dead. We will learn of the lives they impacted, of the little things they did that made them who they were. In this way, the Humboldt tragedy almost grows in magnitude, the further we move from the actual crash. So much has been lost.
On Saturday night in Nipawin, the town the Broncos were travelling to to face their rivals, the Hawks, when their bus collided with a tractor trailer, hockey got back on the ice. The Hawks were playing the Estevan Bruins. Before the game, there was a moment of silence. The public address announcer reminded the crowd that, “for the next two hours, it’s OK to smile and cheer and just feel normal again.”
More stories will be told at Monday’s memorial for Evan Thomas at Saskatoon’s Sasktel Centre. Thomas played centre for the Broncos. His father, Scott, was trailing the team bus. He came upon the crash scene about 45 minutes after his son was killed.
“It’s affected hockey people so hard because any Canadian who’s ever played the game, any parent who’s ever put their child on a bus, probably realizes that that could have been their son or daughter,” Thomas said last week, inviting all those who knew Evan, along with those that didn’t, to come to his son’s service.