B.C. grieves with Humboldt
Saskatchewan crash hits close to home for those in this province with ties to team riding bus
The deadly bus crash in Saskatchewan has sent a wave of grief through hockey towns from coast to coast, including those in B.C., where many have strong links to the team.
Among the dead was the Jaxon Joseph, whose father, Chris, is a retired NHL defenceman. Jaxon was a former Surrey Eagles player from Edmonton. Eagles general manager Blaine Neufeld, Jaxon’s Joseph’s coach for the 2015-16 season, described him as “a glue guy” who held his team together.
“He was respectful of everyone and that made you respect him. He had it together. He always seemed like the kind of guy who was going to find success after hockey, no matter what he did,” Neufeld said.
Jordan Bogress, 18, of Delta, played with the Broncos from September to November, and said his teammates became like his brothers in that short time.
“It just keeps hitting me in waves,” he said. “I go from, ‘Wow, I just can’t believe this is happening,’ to then just going numb.”
Broncos coach Darcy Haugan was among the dead. Bogress described him as someone who put the players above the game.
“He was always checking up on us to see how we were doing, or how it was going with the billets we were staying with ... he was just so caring, and open to talk to,” Bogress said.
Bogress said he has travelled for games on the same route where the crash happened and keeps imagining what happened to his friends. “It gives me the shivers to think about it.”
The Vancouver Canucks took the news hard.
Defenceman Ashton Sautner, a Saskatchewan native, told reporters Saturday that while he didn’t know any of the Broncos, he has family connections including his uncle, Kevin Garinger, who is the team’s president.
“Very tough news to hear,” Sautner said. “The bus is where you feel safe and you spend a lot of time on it when you play junior hockey. It’s supposed to be a fun time, but when something like this happens, it’s terrible.”
The tragedy was top of mind for Canucks Henrik and Daniel Sedin on Saturday as they prepared to take the ice in Edmonton for the final game of their NHL careers.
“It’s just terrible,” Henrik said. Both twins recalled the bus rides and bad road conditions of their teenage years playing for the Modo Hockey club in Sweden.
“You would think it (an accident) would happen more often, but luckily it’s not. But when it happens, it’s terrible news,” Henrik said.
Daniel said the crash was all the Canucks could talk about during their team dinner on Friday night.
“Tough to see, especially the team picture and a lot of them are gone,” he said. “Hockey means nothing when you see that.”
Former pro hockey player Peter Soberlak, a survivor of a bus crash in 1986 that killed four of his Swift Current Broncos teammates in Saskatchewan, booked a flight from B.C. to Saskatchewan with two fellow survivors shortly after the news broke. Soberlak, Sheldon Kennedy and Bob Wilkie hope to help Humboldt in whatever way they can.
“We just want to be there, we want to be together and we want to go and show support for the families and the survivors and the community, and let them know that we know what they’re going through,” said Soberlak, now the athletic-performance adviser at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.
Soberlak fears the hockey community will face lifelong effects from the tragedy. The four teammates he lost in 1986 — Trent Kresse, Scott Kruger, Chris Mantyka and Brent Ruff — are commemorated with a WHL memorial trophy and images of their faces were etched onto a permanent memorial near the site of the accident.
“I don’t think we ever recover from these types of events,” Soberlak said. “I think we do the best with what we have to move on and deal with these challenges. But no, as far as recovering and moving on, it never happens.”
Quinn Schneidmiller, who played three seasons in the Okanagan and was traded from the Broncos to Kirkland Lake this past season, had just visited his former Humboldt teammates on Tuesday. He was with his father when they got the devastating news Friday.
Schneidmiller is still having trouble accepting that they’re gone, he said.
The father and son will attend a vigil Sunday night at the arena in Humboldt before heading to Saskatoon and Regina to visit the survivors in hospital.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met a group of guys like I did at Humboldt. The selflessness and experience … everybody on the team just cared about each other, more than they cared about themselves. That’s what hurts the most.”
“I don’t think we ever recover from these types of events.”
— PETER SOBERLAK FORMER PRO HOCKEY PLAYER