The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Humboldt bus tragedy touches all of hockey
Chris Lillstrung writes about the impact of the Humboldt team bus tragedy in Canada on the entire hockey community.
While there may not be a jersey or a season ticket to show for it, the hockey community is fans of every team at its grassroots.
They come from towns small and large, near and far. They come from all age levels for children across the United States and Canada. They push the sport forward.
Above all else, they are at the heart of our being.
We may not have fully realized it before April 6 — but one of those teams in our hearts is the Humboldt Broncos. And today, they are clutched in our hearts for good.
Tragedy arrived when a bus carrying Humboldt, a junior team from Canadian province Saskatchewan, was involved in a head-on crash with a tractor-semitrailer on a highway en route to a playoff game, killing 15 and injuring 14.
Like Stoneman Douglas — and every time we see a tragedy involving the young and people who help them along life’s journey — it is imperative to say their names and honor their stories.
The 10 players who died were between 16 and 21 — Adam Herold, Connor Lukan, Evan Thomas, Jacob Leicht, Jaxon Joseph, Logan Boulet, Logan Hunter, Logan Schatz, Parker Tobin and Stephen Wack. Four — Herold, Thomas, Hunter and Tobin — were high school age.
Broncos coach Darcy Haugan, assistant Mark Cross, play-by-play announcer Tyler Bieber, statistician Brody Hinz and bus driver Glen Doerksen were all lost as well.
Reading accounts in the days since, obviously all aspects are haunting — but a few hit me hard.
The families and friends who were already at Nipawin as the Hawks were set to host the Broncos in Game 5 of their Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League semifinal series when word came.
The initial pleas to not share images from the horrific scene.
The people from Humboldt, a town of less than 6,000, gathering at the Broncos’ Elgar Petersen Arena trying to process what can’t be and comfort each other all at once.
This tweet from CKOMAM reporter Chris Vandenbreekel: “A father of one of the victims is about 30 ft from me. He is kneeling on the road and crying. Friends who drove him tell me ‘he lost his boy and doesn’t know what to do.’ They were in Nipawin waiting for the game.”
The coroner’s misidentification of player Xavier Labelle as one of the victims when he had in fact survived and Tobin initially being cited as a survivor when in fact he had died.
The moving gesture of putting hockey sticks outside the doors of homes, because “the boys might need it.”
And the tweeted picture that went viral of players who survived clasping hands at the hospital.
There are many fears, of course, but a bus carrying a team to an event not reaching its destination — and having the devastating consequences this one did — is certainly high among them.
And this one is especially heartbreaking because of the value of bus rides to hockey players.
Not that other sports don’t, but the lack of a rink at every corner like a gas station means the bus is especially a sacred place in hockey.
Ask any area high school hockey player past or present, ask any coach or anyone with interest in the sport — and they will be sure to affirm it.
The miles spent on the road getting to the next rink for a league game, a holiday tournament or the postseason forge a special chemistry and friendships that last.
And in Greater Cleveland, sometimes that means hitting the road in the winter when the weather isn’t at its best and you can’t take a snow day like your school did.
You get there eventually, and you play. So that’s why the fact the Broncos didn’t get there strikes so deep.
Perhaps my favorite area high school hockey tweet this past season came from longtime Gilmour coach John Malloy — and it had nothing to do with anything that occurred in a game during a turnaround season for the Lancers.
Malloy had taken his squad up to Toronto for a January holiday tournament, tweeted pictures of his players at a restaurant and wrote: “There’s a special bond which grows from 6AM practices, cold arenas, bad coffee, long road trips, taking care of other kids, letting others care of yours, meals on the run or with an entire team, celebrating BDays and anniversaries on the road. I love this life.”
Part of that love in hockey comes from the road. It comes from a bus. It comes from early mornings and late nights at a rink. It comes from the kinship of a niche — and proud of it — sport.
It comes from knowing there are players and coaches just like you and families just like yours making it work no matter how many hours or how much effort it requires.
It comes from being a fan and having a mutual respect for your brethren in that same boat.
That’s why Humboldt’s unimaginable pain hurts us all across the hockey community, too. We share a bond. They come from a small town far away. They come from an age group that is staring at mortality long before it should. We’ll never meet them. They’ll never meet us. But they are us. We are all Humboldt. We are all Broncos. We mourn together.