Youth hockey team deaths in crash stun Canada

Nipawin, Saskatchewan (AP) — A semi-trailer slammed into a bus carrying a youth hockey team in western Canada, killing 15 people and injuring 14 in a catastrophic collision that a doctor compared to an airstrike and left the vehicles obliterated in the snow. The crash sent shockwaves through the team’s small hometown and a country united by the national sport.

Canadians were moved to tears on Saturday as they learned of the identities of the deceased on the bus that was driving the Humboldt Broncos hockey team to a crucial playoff game Friday against the Nipawin Hawks.

“An entire country is in shock and mourning,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. “This is every parent’s worst nightmare. No one should ever have to see their child leave to play the sport they love and never come back.”

The bus had 29 passengers, including the driver, when it crashed at about 5 p.m. on Highway 35, police said. Among the dead are Broncos head coach Darcy Haugan, team captain Logan Schatz and radio announcer Tyler Bieber. Authorities earlier said three were in critical condition but later provided an update to say that 15 have now died.

Canadian police said the truck driver was initially detained but has since been released and provided with mental health assistance. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Assistant Commissioner Curtis Zablocki said it’s too early to state a cause for the crash.

In a tweet, U.S. President Donald Trump said he called Trudeau to offer his condolences to the families of victims.

Darren Opp, president of the Nipawin Hawks, said a semi T-boned the players’ bus — an account police confirmed.

“It’s a horrible accident, my God,” Opp said.

Hassan Masri, an emergency room doctor at Saskatoon’s Royal University Hospital who has done work in wartorn Syria, said the crash reminded him of an airstrike.

Photographs of the wreckage showed the twisted trailer with most of its wheels in the air and the bus on its side and its back portion destroyed. The force of the crash sent both vehicles into the ditch at the northwest corner of the intersection.

Aerial footage showed the bus on its side, its roof peeled back and its front end destroyed. The trailer of the truck lay nearby in a shattered mess.