Broncos crash survivor gets grand tour with idol
PITTSBURGH Layne Matechuk finally received his high school diploma Tuesday.
His hockey idol Sidney Crosby did the unexpected honour.
Here, in the Pittsburgh Penguins dressing room, of all places.
“I’ve done some different things,” Crosby told the Matechuk family, “but this is one of the coolest things.”
Layne Matechuk — one of 13 survivors from the Humboldt Broncos bus crash — was unable to attend his high school graduation in Colonsay last year. He was still hospitalized at the time after spending a month in a coma.
On Tuesday, he and his family — sister Carly, mother Shelley and father Kevin — spent nearly an hour with Crosby during a tour of the team’s dressing room, training room and indoors shooting room after watching the team’s morning skate.
“It’s huge,” a wide-eyed Layne said, surveying the team’s quarters.
“It was amazing. He (Crosby) is so good. He was so nice to me.”
Layne also met briefly with Penguins players Erik Gudbranson, Jake Guentzel, Kris Letang, assistant coach Mark Recchi and Pens ambassador Bryan Trottier, the pride of Val Marie.
“Not a bad guy to show you around,” Letang said of the family’s tour guide, Crosby.
Crosby told Layne he also met with his Broncos’ teammates Brayden Camrud and Nick Shumlanski last spring, complete with a little hot stove informal panel discussion along with Saskatoon’s Colby Armstrong, a former Penguin.
Crosby politely answered Layne’s questions from what his pre-game meal is (“chicken and rice”) to how many more years he was going to play (maybe six or seven more years).
Matechuk wished Crosby good luck for Tuesday’s game and to go hard.
To which Crosby replied: “I’ll be leaving it all out there, don’t worry.”
Crosby said he was happy to fulfil a hockey players’ dream.
“We’re lucky to be in the position we’re in and it means a lot that he grew up liking me as a player. At the end of the day, it means a lot and I don’t think that ever grows old. You appreciate that and it’s great to meet him and spend some time with him and have that opportunity to share some time. He’s obviously got a crazy work ethic — you can tell he wants to be out there. For everything that happened, just to be able to show him around here and have some fun with him is good.”
Shelley remembers Layne Matechuk crying when Crosby scored the Golden Goal for Canada at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games in 2010.
“Layne was glued to the TV and when Sid scored the goal, he just bawled — he was so happy,” recalled Shelley.
She’ll never forget her son’s reaction Tuesday upon meeting his hockey idol in person prior to the Penguins game against the Stanley Cup champion Capitals.
There were no tears Tuesday, only smiles and laughter.
Crosby has always been his hockey idol. The Penguins remain his favourite team.
“Twelve years,” Layne is quick to point out his long love affair with the Pens.
Layne and the family were introduced to the crowd during the second period of Tuesday’s game against Washington.
While Matechuk was able to attend an NHL game this season in Toronto (dad Kevin is a Maple Leafs fan and the family has a neighbouring cabin with Leafs coach Mike Babcock), he wasn’t a part of the Broncos’ big Las Vegas trip during the NHL awards gala where late Bronco coach Darcy Haugan was honoured posthumously with the Willie O’ree award.
“We were kind of disappointed because they were all able to kind of meet their idols and Layne didn’t and Morgan (Gobeil) didn’t either,” admitted Shelley.
“This is his turn and I hope Morgan (who only got released from hospital recently, as the last Bronco to do so) gets the same opportunity, eventually. We believe in him too. He’s going to get better.
“For this to happen with Crosby is special.”
As a bonus, the Matechuk family also got to meet Alexander Ovechkin and Chandler Stephenson from the Washington Capitals. The Caps just happen to be the favourite team of Layne’s sister Carly.
In fact, Carly was brave enough to wear a Capitals T-shirt in the Pens’ dressing room, got it autographed by Ovechkin and then swore that, if she ever got Ovechkin’s autograph, she was “getting it tattooed on my ankle.” Her mother just rolled her eyes. Parents Kevin and Shelley both say that the only time the two siblings ever fought was during Stanley Cup playoff time. One child would watch the game on TV upstairs, the other downstairs. Then they wouldn’t talk to each other for a few days.
“Rivalry is good,” said Shelley. Last spring, Layne was in a coma when the Stanley Cup champion was crowned. When he was later told Washington had won it, he was in disbelief. “He wouldn’t believe,” explained Kevin. “He said to me, ‘How? Pittsburgh always knocks out Washington.’ We had to show him proof.”
Stephenson, a native of Saskatoon, said Matechuk’s visit “hits home and you just appreciate everything.
“For him to be walking around and doing everything he can with rehab, and stuff like that, you see the warrior that he is,” said Stephenson, a Capitals forward.
“It’s just awesome to see and see how far he’s come. Nobody can ever talk about how hard it is because we haven’t gone through something like that.
“To see how close everybody stayed from it and to see how strong everybody affected by it has been, it’s very humbling and awesome to see.
“I think a lot of people will have the utmost respect for those people.”
We’re lucky to be in the position we’re in and it means a lot that he grew up liking me as a player.