WICKENHEISER A SPECIAL INSPIRATION FOR FEMALE ATHLETES ACROSS CANADA
Dayna Brons, who died in Broncos bus crash, was a big fan, writes Kevin Mitchell
The assignment: Write about a hero. Take your pick. The elementary-school kid given that assignment: Dayna Brons.
So she wrote about Hayley Wickenheiser, one hockey-loving, small-town Saskatchewan girl writing about another hockey-loving, small-town Saskatchewan girl.
“She thought of Hayley as a hero to all girls who wanted to play sports, and hockey especially,” Dayna’s mother, Carol Brons, says when telling the tale of that essay.
Now, many years later, Wickenheiser is a fresh inductee into the Hockey Hall of Fame. She has crossed spheres with Dayna’s parents, Carol and Lyle, over the last year and a half, and they’re so very happy for her.
Dayna died in 2018. She was travelling on the Humboldt Broncos’ bus that collided with a semi at a rural intersection.
She followed, in some ways, Wickenheiser’s trajectory: grew up in small-town Saskatchewan, played organized hockey with and against boys, liked fastball, too.
Of the 16 people who died in that crash, Dayna, just 24 years old, lingered the longest. Five days altogether. In that time, Wickenheiser reached out to the family and expressed her support.
“If Dayna would have been conscious, it would have been really awesome for her to be able to talk to Hayley, even if it was by phone,” Carol says. “But it meant a lot to us.
“Hayley was one of the first ones to speak up on Dayna’s behalf, to bring attention to the fact that Dayna was part of the team, as well.”
On the day of Dayna’s funeral, Wickenheiser Tweeted this: “Dayna Brons was laid to rest today. May she remind us all that there are so many unsung heroes behind every team. God bless Brons family. Dayna is forever in our hearts.”
Carol and Lyle met Wickenheiser prior to a Country Thunder Broncos tribute concert a few months later, and had a meal with her the next day. As they ate, they told her a little more about Dayna.
On Tuesday, they talked about Wickenheiser’s impact on one Saskatchewan girl. Wickenheiser was a trailblazer in so many ways, playing boys’ hockey at a time when that was unthinkable; cutting her hair to fit in; getting better and better and better, and driving women’s hockey into broad public acceptance.
Girls carrying hockey bags? It happens all the time now, Wickenheiser pointed out a few years ago, but she had a rough ride before things got to that point.
When Dayna grew up in Lake Lenore, there wasn’t a girls’ team within a reasonable driving distance. She played with the boys by default up until Grade 7, after which she hung up her blades.
Dayna playing hockey wasn’t as novel as Hayley playing hockey, and Carol and Lyle say the girls’ game in their rural area has grown even more quickly over the last decade. If Dayna was coming up now in the same place, she’d play with all-girls teams at each age level.
“When Dayna played, she wasn’t the only girl who played hockey, but she was one of the few,” Carol says. “And at one time, she was the only girl on the team, playing with the boys. She definitely had some of the same experiences (as Wickenheiser) when it came to changing and bathrooms, the shower stalls in the boys’ dressing room.
“Hayley’s said she had to cut her hair, and things like that. It kind of reminds me of when Dayna played hockey, she took dance at the same time. One game, they had a league playoff on the same day they had a dance competition. Dayna went straight from dancing to playing hockey, and didn’t bother taking off her dance makeup. I assume Hayley wouldn’t have dared do that kind of thing. She would definitely have been singled out. Dayna didn’t have that same thing.”
Wickenheiser’s journey helped smooth the path for Dayna and thousands of other girls, and so it was that Dayna found a meaningful niche when she joined the Broncos as an athletic therapist.
“Especially in the second year,” says Lyle. “The players accepted her in her first year, but (then) she kind of found her voice.”
She became “a confidante and mentor,” as Carol puts it, and it’s a sentiment that has been echoed by many close to the team.
After Dayna died, Mosaic donated $5,000 to the arena in Lake Lenore, to do with as they saw fit in her memory.
“The board asked us how they should use it,” says Carol, “and Lyle’s first suggestion was to make a girls’ dressing room.”
So if you visit John Doherty Memorial Arena in Lake Lenore, you’ll see the Dayna Brons Memorial Dressing Room. You might see girls lugging hockey bags in and out of this room that’s all their own.
“We’re happy to know that’s one of the few towns around here that has a dedicated girls’ dressing room,” Carol says.
“It means a lot. They have a quote on there about strength and perseverance, the things that pretty much described Dayna. It means a lot to us.”
The family is also grateful for Wickenheiser, and how she “pushed for more opportunities for girls,” as Carol puts it, so that in the year 2019, there’s a hockey dressing room just for females, a place of comfort and camaraderie.
“(Monday’s Hall of Fame induction) is very special to us, even if we hadn’t had the connection to her that we’ve had,” she added. “The small-town pride kind of thing, that somebody can get to her level and be recognized. And not just for her hockey skill. She is an amazing person.
“All of the recognition she’s gotten, she definitely deserves.”