SEPTEMBER
In our Year in Review series, the Saskatoon Starphoenix looks back on the stories that affected residents the most in 2018.
BRONCOS REGROUP
Brayden Camrud and Derek Patter, who survived the April 6 Humboldt Broncos bus crash, pulled on their skates and launched a new season.
They and their teammates were led by new Broncos’ head coach and general manager Nathan Oystrick, who replaced the deceased Darcy Haugan.
The Broncos went 1-3 during the pre-season. They were rebuilding from scratch, still mired in grief, and there was no blueprint to follow.
“You’ve got to make sure you’re mentally and emotionally checked in every single night,” said Camrud, who collected 16 goals and 26 assists in 57 games last season, before posting eight points in nine playoff matches.
“You’ve got to be there for your team. I’m using the guys that were here last year, all the parents, everybody who’s ever supported me, as my fuel. I’m doing it for them. And I need to do it for the guys who are on the team this year, because they’re coming up as young guys. We’re all young men, and I’ve got to do my best to groom them and lead the way.”
BODY FOUND
On what would have been a day Greagan Geldenhuys looked forward to, returning to classes with his schoolmates, his family issued a statement “remembering the fearless, cheerful, friendly boy we all knew and loved.”
The body of the seven-year-old Lebret boy was found near Fort Qu’appelle, ending a weeklong search for the child in the Echo Lake area.
Darcy Pantel first posted the news of his nephew’s death on Facebook. He said the body was found by passersby on the same shore where the boy’s mother, Tamaine Geldenhuys, was found dead eight days earlier.
Pantel thanked the volunteers and first responders who laboured for days to find the missing boy by scouring Echo Lake, where he was last seen on B-say-tah beach with his mother on Aug. 24.
“Thank you to all who have volunteered their time, who have helped us in our time of need,” he wrote.
“We have heard many times that at least finding the body will bring closure, and in a sense it does, but what it really marks is the start of the healing process.”
POLICE LIP SYNC
Members of the Saskatoon Police Service filmed a lip sync challenge, sharing to the service’s Facebook page their own version of Backstreet Boys’ smash hit, I Want It That Way.
Within one hour of the video being posted, it had already gen- erated more than 30,000 views, plus thousands of comments and shares.
“Remember those #lipsyncchallenge videos from last month? Well our community asked us for one, so we’re delivering!” Saskatoon police wrote on the service’s official Facebook page, noting that sworn and civilian members of the force “volunteered their holidays, days off and lunch hours to make this possible.”
TRUDEAU FRUSTRATED
The Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations denied responsibility for the leak of a video in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared to express frustration about “time management” during a meeting with chiefs in Saskatoon.
The three-minute, 38-second video, entitled “PMJT berates FSIN Chiefs,” surfaced online four days after the prime minister met with the federation ahead of his planned address to the Liberal Party of Canada caucus.
In the clip, Trudeau appeared to suggest that the first portion of the 8 a.m. meeting went longer than expected, leaving little time to hear the concerns of other people present, one of whom said he drove four hours for the opportunity to address the prime minister.
AMBER ALERT
Hundreds of hours of surveillance footage from more than 200 businesses helped establish a vehicle’s movements after it was stolen with a six-year-old girl inside.
As a result of the police investigation into the Sept. 16 Amber Alert, issued after a North Battleford girl went missing, charges including child abduction and dangerous driving were laid against a 19-year-old man.
Johnathan Ryann Gunville was charged in relation to the Sept. 16 Amber Alert, as well as two subsequent vehicle thefts on Sept. 19-20.
The Amber Alert was issued after a six-year-old girl went missing when someone stole a running, unlocked SUV from outside a strip mall on Railway Avenue North at about 5 p.m. on Sept. 16. The girl, who has autism and epilepsy, was in the back seat at the time.
Around 6:45 a.m. on Sept. 17, RCMP reported the girl had been found safe in the stolen vehicle, two kilometres away from where it had been taken. It had been spotted by workers who called police to report the vehicle, which they recognized from the police description.