STANLEY DROPS BY
NHL’s storied old mug helps clear away some of the sadness in Humboldt
Washington Capitals player and Stanley Cup champion Chandler Stephenson greets fans while holding the NHL’s top trophy during Humboldt Hockey Day at Elgar Petersen Arena on Friday. Large crowds turned out in the community, which is still healing after April’s bus tragedy.
HUMBOLDT That old Stanley Cup has been kicked into a canal, abandoned on a roadside, dropped into a bonfire.
They treated it so much better in Humboldt on Friday: Babies sat in the bowl; seniors fingered its engraved surface; everybody smiled; nobody kicked. And the Cup, in turn, extended a healing touch to a stricken city.
“There are still a lot of emotions going on around town. A lot of friends, a lot of family aren’t here, that should be,” Humboldt resident Ryan Currie said after his visit with the silver icon.
“But it’s good for the kids, good for families, good for the community.”
Friday was Humboldt Hockey Day — a tonic, as it were, for a community grieving the April 6 crash that killed 16 people on the Humboldt Broncos bus.
The night before this gathering, 22 players, including veterans, boarded a bus for a short ride to Muenster, where they went through physical training. That highway venture was by design.
“I planned that specifically to get that first bus trip out of the way,” said Broncos’ assistant general manager Jason Neville.
“It was only a 10-minute trip out to Muenster, fitness testing at St. Pete’s, then 10 minutes back. I was apprehensive at the beginning, then you get talking to people. It was in my mind a little bit, but it went all right.”
Counsellors were on the bus with the team, and Neville said things “went fine.
“We’re just trying to think of what possibly could be a trigger, and making sure players know that if they need anything, to reach out,” he added.
The small city, too, is slowly healing.
Currie lined up an hour early Friday, with kids Katheryn Coppens, 11, and Chayton Currie, 7. They met Washington Capitals’ forward Chandler Stephenson, who brought the storied trophy into Humboldt, and had their moment with the Cup.
The crowd snaked along three sides of the Humboldt Uniplex on Friday, through the doors, down a hallway, and into a large room. A security guard counted 500 people in the outside line during one short span, and that 500 replenished itself, like loaves and fishes, a steady stream stretching into the thousands.
On the night of April 6, that same room was a gathering point for the stunned community. They sat at tables and paced the floor. Tears flowed, and news came slowly as the tragedy bounced out of Saskatchewan and into the broader world.
But on Friday, a smiling Stephenson greeted each person in turn, posed for photos, shook hands and encouraged shy kids to brush the Cup’s surface with their hands.
Ex-NHLer Andrew Ference, who now works as the league’s director of social impact, growth and fan development, talked about the Cup’s powers.
“It does something magical to people,” he said. “It’s an inanimate object that just turns people to jelly, whether you’re a grandpa or a little kid. They’re touching it and looking at the names, getting their pictures with it. It really is an amazing thing. If it’s a catalyst to get everybody in that room — have smiles, get pictures, talk to each other — that’s its purpose today.”
NHL players and alumni played street hockey with locals. The town gathered, laughed, hugged. Broncos’ family members had their own private session in the morning, just them and the Cup, which in this case took on a more subtle role. It sat back, knowing its place.
“The Cup kind of stayed off to the side, and some people took pictures with it,” said Chris Joseph, a former NHL player whose son Jaxon died in the crash. “But we didn’t get super excited over the Cup. We got really excited to see each other, and to see the NHL players that came to join us. The Cup was secondary.”
Joseph talked about how the day was a big step for the city, for the country, for hockey. He talked about the past, and the present.
“As the 2017-18 families, I think we all collectively want to give these kids a big hug, tell them we love them, tell them we wish them well, and let them get to playing some hockey,” he said, and that night, that’s exactly what the Broncos did.
Seventy-nine players, including two on that April 6 bus — Derek Patter and Brayden Camrud — populate the four mini-teams skating up and down the ice.
Goaltender Jacob Wassermann, who survived the crash and is paralyzed from the waist down, remains with the team as a scout. He’ll also work as a goaltending consultant this weekend.
“I’ve reached out to our players from last year who are still eligible,” said Neville, who worked extensively on the team’s hockey operations before they hired new head coach and general manager Nathan Oystrick.
“I said, if it’s the last game of the year and you get cleared to play, we will get you in the last game of the year. The door is never closed for any of those guys.”
It’s hockey season again in Humboldt. The grief’s not finished — not by a long shot — but on a late-summer Saskatchewan day, the Stanley Cup did what it does best.
“There’s been a lot of sadness in this rink,” said new Broncos’ president Jamie Brockman. “Today’s about celebrating and moving forward.”