Humboldt chaplain to speak at Petes game
Petes chaplain Tim Coles went to Humboldt to comfort families after junior hockey bus crash tragedy last April
The tragic Humboldt Broncos bus crash on April 6 gripped the nation and spurred Peterborough Petes chaplain Tim Coles to action.
While ministering to Humboldt players and families last spring Coles came to know Broncos chaplain Sean Brandow. During the fifth annual Petes Faith Night on Thursday, when they host the Kingston Frontenacs, Brandow will be guest speaker for a post-game discussion on the ice.
Coles learned about the crash when he woke up the next morning after the Friday night crash. He’d returned the night before from a week-long trip to Vancouver, to find his wife Christine watching news of the crash, which killed 16 people and injured 13 others, on television.
“Christine and I looked at each other and said, ‘There must be something we can do,’” Coles said.
The injured players were airlifted to a Saskatoon hospital where Kim Worthington, chaplain for the Western Hockey League’s Saskatoon Blades, was counselling families and players. Brandow went to the crash site and returned to Humboldt to tend to a grieving community including a vigil on April 6.
Coles reached out to Worthington, who he knew through Youth For Christ, who asked him to come.
“I checked with Christine because I’d been away for a whole week and she said ‘Go.’”
When he first arrived Coles helped prepare lunch for the families but it wasn’t long before he was counselling players and family members.
He was in the ICU when Broncos trainer Dana Brons died. Coles said Petes trainer Brian Miller had arranged a prayer vigil for Brons back in Peterborough. Coles shared that with her family.
“Being a trainer Brian was really affected by that,” Coles said.
The family of a player who was fighting for his life asked Coles to prayer with them at his bed side.
“Precious, precious times,” Coles said.
The player was Morgan Gobeil who survived but remains the only player left in the hospital. He has a lengthy rehabilitation ahead. Coles visited him two weeks ago.
For the surviving players Coles tried to offer hope.
“One player in particular was really, really bad. He had a tracheotomy and his jaw was broken so he couldn’t talk,” Coles recalled.
“I’d talk to him and then he’d text on his cellphone and show me the screen. I asked if I could pray with him and he enthusiastically nodded yes. I held his hand when I prayed with him and then he didn’t let go after. It was a special time. It was like holding your 10-year-old’s hand.”
At one point, Coles got Nashville Predators player and Peterborough native Mike Fisher on the phone.
“I passed the phone around to all the players who were alert enough to talk to him. He spent about an hour talking with the different guys. It was very memorable for them,” Coles said.
It wasn’t until after he left the hospital to return home Coles realized how much the incident had gripped the nation and the hockey community.
“They weren’t watching the news in there. They were in their own crisis mode,” Coles said. “You’d hear people come in and say things about what was going on but they didn’t really have an idea on the impact it was having on the nation. Man, did it have an impact.”
It united a country in grief. A girlfriend of one of the boys said to Coles, “I think the country needed this. Too bad the cost was so high. I thought that was a pretty profound statement,” he said.
It’s had a lasting impact on Coles, a father of two boys Clay, 19, and Eli, 14.
“Just how precious life is and the urgency for us as people to care for each other. To put down petty things and fighting. As a follower of Christ, the urgency to share the good news of Jesus was placed heavier on me after that. You do hug your kids a little tighter. You just appreciate everything around you a little more.”
Coles hopes Petes fans will stick around following the game to listen to Brandow.
“He kind of became Canada’s hockey chaplain in that one moment,” Coles said.
“He calls himself a turtle on a fence post. A turtle doesn’t put himself on a fence post. Somebody puts you there. He didn’t ask for this but, yet, here he was having to be a chaplain for a nation.”
NOTE: Faith Night tickets are available for $13 each for groups of 15 or more. Contact Bolton
Kirkof in the Petes office at bkirkof@gopetesgo.com or call 705-743-3681, ext. 257.