A NEW START FOR THE BRONCOS
It’s an emotional night as their season begins, five months after devastating bus crash
On a chilly, overcast day in Humboldt, 160 nights after bus and semi collided at a rural Saskatchewan intersection, two groups of boys pulled on their jerseys and played hockey.
Before this wee miracle of a game, Humboldt Broncos players passed through a dressing room door with a sign above the frame — a message from Darcy Haugan to his team.
“It’s a great day to be a Bronco, gentlemen,” reads the sign, green with white letters. From that little message came a walk to the ice surface, a sold-out arena, a national television audience, a hockey game.
Haugan, the Broncos’ head coach and general manager, used that phrase almost daily before he died in the April 6 crash that killed 16 people on the Broncos’ bus.
A little more than five months later, the Broncos — rebuilt the best they could, in the tight time frame they were given — played their season opener against the Nipawin Hawks, losing 2-1 in a tightly played scrap.
“I think it’s a miracle that we’re to the point where we’re getting a team together here,” says Broncos’ president Jamie Brockman. “To think that the regular season is starting, from where we were five, six months ago ... it’s quite amazing we got to this point.”
The Broncos placed an equipment order within weeks of the crash. The man who distributed their equipment is Mark Doepker, the owner of Universal Sports, which is tucked into downtown Humboldt. Doepker is a seasonticket holder; he’s cheered for the Broncos since they formed in 1970.
“Sadness and sorrow ... there’s anxiety, there’s enthusiasm,” he said in the afternoon, while working in his store. “I think you could just about cover the whole gamut of emotions. The tragedy, then getting the game underway — getting things off to a new start. There’s that excitement.”
Two players on that April 6 bus suited up for the Broncos Wednesday night. Brayden Camrud and Derek Patter dressed across from each other. Each occupied the centre stall on his own side of the room, flanked by five per side.
A new coach, Nathan Oystrick, walked on the floor between those two walls, new players populating the room.
As puck-drop neared, players skated to the spotlight one by one. They saved Camrud and Patter for last. Fans rose to their feet. Patter put his right arm around Camrud’s shoulder, and Camrud his left arm around Patter.
Eight more of last year’s survivors congregated on the ice.
From there, Patter and Camrud went to centre ice for the ceremonial faceoff. Tyler Smith, who survived that crash, dropped the puck, flanked by the whole crew. They all enjoyed one more moment on the ice — one last moment on the ice — as the arena got louder, louder, louder.
Then a moment of silence for the 16 who didn’t make it, broken by quiet sniffles, up, down, left, right, everywhere. At the back of the arena, a woman stood by, tissue packages in hand for bystanders to take as needed — a nice little Humboldt touch in a city accustomed to tears.
Then, puck-drop, and hockey, and a return to as much normalcy as everybody could muster.
“When I got the call and the texts (on April 6), all the rumours that are flying around, it was a terrible feeling,” says Kyle Sargent, a veteran defenceman who was selected from the Yorkton Terriers in this summer’s SJHL dispersal draft. “I was sick to my stomach. It puts into perspective how short life is, and how much of a privilege it is to be able to wake up every day to play junior hockey and do something that you love. It put everything into perspective — play every game like it’s your last.”
But Wednesday’s game was his first — his first official match as a Bronco, his first game of a new season.
Where the team goes, so go the fans. The local museum has an upstairs display, with a rotating collection of everything that’s been sent their way from one end of the world to the other. Traffic was especially brisk up there Wednesday.
There’s a signed letter from a Grade 1 class in Tuktoyaktuk; a hand-knitted Canadian flag from a 90-year-old woman in Swan River, Man., who suffered a massive
stroke eight days after the Broncos crash. She made it known that she wanted that flag to go to the “hockey boys.”
That’s what the Broncos and Hawks skated into Wednesday night — unlimited good will and best wishes, from a country that wishes them nothing but the best.
And back home in Humboldt, they welcome the new season.
“You’re looking forward to it in the sense of getting everything moving again,” Doepker said. “I guess you’re never going to forget it. You’re never going to get over it. It’s never going to be gone. But I guess it’s one of those things — it’ll be nice to see everything start moving again, if that makes sense?”