Fabric of a nation
From coast to coast, jerseys worn in show of support for Humboldt
Across Canada, people showed up to work and school decked out in sports jerseys as part of Jersey Day to send a message of support for the families who lost loved ones in the Humboldt crash.
At Queen’s Park, MPPs from all parties wore jerseys during question period in the house.
The Toronto Transit Commission allowed employees to wear jerseys over their uniforms. And a number of Toronto schools posted photographs on social media of students wearing their jerseys.
Farialle Pacha, 26, an employee of a wealth-management firm in downtown Toronto, wore her cousin’s AHL sweater in solidarity with the Broncos, whose team bus collided with a tractor-trailer last Friday on a highway in rural Saskatchewan. Sixteen people, including several teenage players, have died. Thirteen were injured, some critically.
“Being Canadian and hockey being so entrenched in our culture . . . it’s such a terrible tragedy to have so many young lives go in such a terrible way,” Pacha said.
Bailey MacLachlan, 25, said the bank she works for sent a mass email asking people to show support. She wore a Maple Leafs jersey.
“It really hit close to home,” she said. “I’m part of a hockey community, so it was something that I could really relate to.”
Paramedics in Peel and police in Guelph were among those who donned jerseys. In Quinte West, Ont., provincial police showed their support by having two members of their canine unit wear jerseys and pose for a photograph alongside uniformed officers.
In Alberta, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft donned a red Team Canada jersey to deliver a speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce extolling trade between Canada and the United States on Thursday morning.
She said she and her husband, Joe, were “deeply saddened” by the tragedy.
On Parliament Hill, a lone hockey stick leaned outside the Senate entrance to the Centre Block.
Political and non-political Parliament Hill staffers donned whatever sports jerseys they had and dozens
of Senate staffers jammed the Hall of Honour for a lunch hour picture. Among them was Isabelle Poulin, who is from Zenon Park, Sask. She said her family regularly drove the same stretch of highway where the accident happened. “Being from home and knowing people who knew some of the kids intimately, like my best friend’s daughter is in the same class as Xavier Labelle,” Poulin said. “It just hits a little bit closer.”
In Halifax, staff at Citadel High School were dressed in the school’s oversized hockey jerseys as they greeted students for morning classes.
Ryan Connors, coach of the boys’ Phoenix hockey team at Citadel, said he was devastated when news started coming in last Friday of a team bus crash in rural Saskatchewan.
“It was surreal,” he said. “I’ve taken a lot of players from this school on bus trips for the last16 years and it was gut-wrenching just thinking it could have happened to anyone, any time.”