Funerals held for 2 players, bus driver

Funerals were held Friday for two players and their driver who died last week after a semi-truck and a bus collided in rural Saskatchewan as the Humboldt Broncos were travelling to a junior hockey playoff game. One family requested privacy, another livestreamed the mass and a third urged mourners to make some noise.

Jacob Leicht’s mother asked the 2,500 mourners who filled Elgar Petersen Arena in Humboldt to cheer for him one last time at his home rink.

Eleven chants of “Go Broncos Go” rang through the rafters, followed by 11 seconds of horns and noisemakers, to honour her son’s jersey number.

“I think it will be a beautiful send-off to my beautiful boy,” Celeste Leicht said.

Jacob, 19, was remembered by family friend and former coach Shaun Gardiner as a left-winger who lacked size but made up for it in hard work.

“Jacob was the classic underdog hockey player that everybody roots for,” said Gardiner, whose son Erik played for the Broncos to start last season before getting called up to the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets.

“He had the drive and the will to allow him to earn ice-time, opportunities and playing time with all the teams he ever played for,” added Gardiner, whose older son Reid also starred for the Rockets as their playoff MVP last year before graduating to the ECHL where he was named to the All-Rookie team this season.

At Montmartre, Sask., hockey jerseys were draped over the coffin of the youngest victim of the crash while youths at the funeral mass for defenceman Adam Herold wore jerseys with his name and No. 10 on the back. Adam was just under a week shy of his 17th birthday when he died.

Hockey gloves, a snowmobiling helmet, a hunting cap and a toy tractor were placed at the altar of Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in his hometown of Montmartre.

Darrin McKechnie, who coached Adam when he played midget hockey, said he was the kind of boy you would want your son to emulate and your daughter to bring home.

Family friend Mike Blaisdell, who also once coached Adam, described the teen as having time for everyone.

“Adam talked to people old and young. It didn’t matter,” Blaisdell said. “He was interested and cared about everyone.”

The Canadian Press A pair of hockey sticks are seen attached to a stop sign along Highway 5 south of Humboldt, Sask., on Friday. An accident involving a transport truck and a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos hockey team left 16 dead and injured 13 more on April 6.