Giants stop to pay respects in Prairies
Story of 1986 Swift Current team’s bus crash reminds players of fragility of life
As part of their six-game Eastern Conference road trip, the Vancouver Giants stopped at the Four Broncos memorial just outside Swift Current.
They have someone on their bus who understands the story all too well.
Associate coach Dean Chynoweth was a WHL defenceman with the Medicine Hat Tigers when the Swift Current Broncos’ bus hit a patch of black ice and crashed on Dec. 30, 1986. Broncos players Trent Kresse, Scott Kruger, Chris Mantyka and Brent Ruff were killed.
Chynoweth went on to be coach and general manager of the Broncos for five seasons, starting in 2004-05.
The memorial, spearheaded by Swift Current man Bill Lee, was unveiled last December, on the 30-year anniversary of the crash. It features pictures of Kresse, Kruger, Mantyka and Ruff inside a four-leaf clover design and it’s located at the site of the crash, some five kilometres east of Swift Current, just off the Trans-Canada Highway.
Various teams in the WHL made a point of stopping there during road trips through Saskatchewan.
The Broncos’ jerseys feature a fourleaf clover patch with the numbers of Kresse, Kruger, Mantyka and Ruff.
“I think there’s history that’s good and there’s history that’s bad and you have to learn from both and move forward,” said Chynoweth, who signed on with Vancouver this off-season to work alongside head coach Jason McKee.
“I think there were guys on the team who didn’t know that much about the story. Unless you’re a Saskatchewan kid, you may not have heard that much about it.
“I talked to them at the memorial and pointed out just how far out of town we were. It can happen anytime. It wasn’t the middle of a long road trip. They were just leaving town.”
Giants’ left-winger Brayden Watts added: “It was both really sad to see but great to pay our respects. I had heard about it, but to be there and see those guys’ faces and to know those things can happen really makes you think.”
The Giants filed onto the bus after, and each thanked bus driver Derek Holloway, as per team custom, according to Chynoweth. He maintains, though, that things “sounded a little different,” that there was little extra appreciation for Holloway.
Holloway, a former Delta police officer, has been the Giants’ main bus driver since the team entered the WHL for the 2001-02 season. He’s one of the league’s unsung heroes, along with the rest of his bus-driving brethren.
“D has been doing this for so many years and he’s obviously an amazing driver,” said Giants’ right-winger Ty Ronning. “Anytime you get a chance to thank him, you need to do it.”
Defenceman Alex Kannok Leipert said: “Derek definitely cares about us. He takes his job very seriously and he makes sure he can help us any way he can.”
That Broncos team featured Joe Sakic and Sheldon Kennedy up front. Future WHL coaches Dan Lambert and Ryan McGill were part of its defence corps. The infamous Graham James was head coach.
Sudden Death: The Incredible Saga of the 1986 Swift Current Broncos, was published in November 2012. Gregg Drinnan, a longtime newspaper reporter who covers the WHL to this day through his Taking Note blog, combined with Bob Wilkie, a defenceman with the team from 1986-89, and Leesa Culp, who witnessed the crash, to author the book.
The Four Broncos Memorial Trophy is awarded to the WHL’s player of the year.