Humboldt Broncos return to ice five months after fatal crash killing 16

The Humboldt Broncos made an emotional return to the ice on Wednesday night for their first junior hockey league game since a bus crash in April that killed 16 people.

There were very few dry eyes at the Elgar Peterson Arena as the Broncos lost 2-1 to the Nipawin Hawks on a night that paid tribute to the 10 players killed and 13 injured in the horrific collision on a rural Canadian highway.

The Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League team was forced to rebuild their team from scratch. There are just two survivors, Brayden Camrud and Derek Patter, on the current roster and they took part in a ceremonial face-off on Wednesday.

Joining them on the ice for the tributes was former goaltender Jacob Wassermann, who used a wheelchair, and seven other surviving players.

The devastating loss of life was keenly felt across Canada and elsewhere. National Hockey League teams in Canada and the US helped raise money and observed moments of silence before regular-season games in tribute to the victims.

In June, Canadian police charged the truck driver Jaskirat Singh Sidhu with 16 counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death and 13 counts of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing bodily injury.

Sidhu was the only person involved in the crash to escape injury or death. Canadian police said the semi-trailer was exceeding the speed limit.

The semi-trailer, loaded with heavy bundles of peat moss, was heading west on the evening of April 6 when it collided at a rural intersection with the team bus which was heading north to a playoff game in the town of Nipawin.

The force of the collision ripped open the bus and hurled its occupants across the frozen scene.