P.K. MEETS THE BRONCOS
Nine survivors of bus tragedy make trip to Las Vegas as special guests of NHL
Members of the Humboldt Broncos take a photo with Nashville Predators Star P. K. Subban after an event put on by the NHL in Las Vegas on Tuesday. The Broncos will be guests at the NHL awards on Wednesday.
There they were: Banks of cameras, recorders, notebooks. Bodies pressed in, and questions flew fast.
Then it ended, and Tyler Smith went into a backroom with his Humboldt Broncos’ teammates, peeled off his jersey, and marvelled at his sweat-soaked clothes.
He was so nervous, he said — sweated bullets, as they say. The press conference, on the eve of today’s NHL awards, drew a large throng of reporters. Nine of the 10 surviving Broncos who made the trip were introduced, answered a few questions from host Elliotte Friedman, then three of them — Smith, Kaleb Dahlgren and Ryan Straschnitzki — split off to meet the scrum.
On the way to the Winn Las Vegas Resort, where the conference was held, a parent asked what exactly a scrum is.
“I think they have a bunch of microphones in front of your face,” Dahlgren replied, and when it was over, the gregarious player allowed that it really wasn’t so bad.
He didn’t sweat as much as Smith, who, like the rest of his travelling party, continues to heal from the April 6 crash that killed 16 people on the Broncos team bus. He suffered a broken collarbone and shoulder blade, and nerve damage on the left side of his body.
He wants to play hockey again, he says, but he must obey his body. He works every day at progressing, a little at a time.
As for his meeting with the press — his first, apart from an appearance on Hockey Night in Canada — he displayed tremendous acumen.
The kid was well-spoken, insightful.
“I wish the circumstances were different,” Smith said when asked what it was like to face a media throng that must have seemed never-ending. “But it’s cool to be here, to see what it really is — to see what NHLers go through and what they deal with every day. It’s neat. It’s overwhelming. It’s a lot. Obviously, we’re in little old Humboldt, and we’re just together every day. This is a lot.”
Smith, who’s from Leduc, Alberta, talked about crying, and laughing, and players healing in their own way.
He held a gathering last weekend at the family home, and eight players congregated, many from long distance.
“That was good, to just enjoy the time together again — to share stories and laugh,” he said. “Everything about it was amazing. It was what we needed. It was a big part of the healing process, and I wish we could do it every weekend. I wish we all lived in the same place, but unfortunately, we don’t. We’ve got to take advantage of when we can actually get together, and just enjoy it — whether we’re all crying, or doing whatever, it’s just important to just heal together.”
He returned often to the family theme on Tuesday. That Broncos team, he said, was the most tightknit he’s even been on, and he’s played hockey for a long time.
It’s good, he said, to be a Bronco. “I want to offer up my house — be like, ‘Hey, you guys — I’m here for you, and we’re all here for each other, and we’re all family,’ ” he said. “They’re welcome to stay whenever they want. I don’t care if I’m at work and they just pop by. They can drive six hours; I’ll drive six hours. We’ll do anything for each other.”
Next up: The NHL awards.