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Column: #HumboldtStrong, hockey and how it brings people together

Ponoka’s Justin Kelly speaks to the collision that killed 16 Humboldt Broncos and its ripples
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The crash that killed the 16 members of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team sent shockwaves around the world. Humboldt Broncos Twitter

By Justin Kelly

Humboldt Strong. Two words in Canadian hockey history that will live in infamy.

April 6, 2018 is a day that most Canadians and many others around the globe will remember for the rest of their lives – and the gut wrenching feeling that came with the news we all heard that day. For that is the day we learned that 16 of 29 people who were either part of, or played hockey for the Humboldt Broncos lost their lives. They were on the bus, together, on their way to play game 5 of their playoff series against the Nipawin Hawks.

April 6th was the day that so many families were completely torn apart, never to be the same again. Immeasurable loss experienced in so many ways by so many different people.

I find it hard to write this piece, because there is no way for me to do it justice. There is no way to put all my feelings into words. There are so many moving parts to this one and it hits so close to home for me. I have lived that life on the bus, as so many of us have, and continue to do so to this day.

The hockey community is a very small one. We’re tight. There is a brotherhood shared through our passion for the game so many of us share and have grown up to love. A passion that extends for so many miles across this great hockey nation of ours, and even overseas. A passion that is shared well after our playing days are done. Friendships were built that were made to last a lifetime.

The bus is as important to a hockey team as are their sticks and skates. The bus, like the dressing room, is a sacred place for players and coaches. It’s a place, just for them and nobody else. The bus and the dressing room is where hockey players become brothers. What you see on the ice is a product of the bond and brotherhood mixed with skills these boys-and girls of all ages make together as a team. Their team.

Hockey players are passionate about the game they love. You can never tell a hockey player it’s just a game – or try to explain to a hockey player that there are things in the world that matter so much more than hockey. While they might understand the truth to your point, their heart will never be able to accept it, considering the immensity that a player, or coach, gives to the game, and the immeasurability of all the sport has to offer the athlete in return.

Hockey is a sport that an athlete gives their life to, and in doing so, many life lessons are taught, and bonds that last forever are made. You see, hockey is every bit as much about life as it is about the game, but it’s disguised – and maybe never truly understood until long after our skill falls short of what our will desires.

I remember so many great trips on the bus, both as a player and as a coach. I remember as a player the excitement that came with riding the bus. It was a chance to connect with my teammates by sharing laughs, playing cards, sharing stories from school or parties, and of course there were always shenanigans (that can’t be spoken of in this writing) that happened on the bus.

The bus made you feel a bit like you were in the big league when you rolled up to an arena together in a town you absolutely hated, and you heard the distinct sound of those air brakes when the bus parked out front and centre of another “enemy arena”. You’d step off the bus with so much confidence and your chest puffed out trying to look like you were the baddest bear in the forest or as bad ass as you could look dressed in a shirt and tie.

As a coach, you shifted from the back of the bus to the front; exactly where head coach Darcy Haugen would have been on that tragic day. When you are the coach, you know enough from prior experience as a player that they need that time at the back of the bus together to bond. There is nothing better than bus trips to bring teams and players closer together in my opinion.

It is partly because of all these memories and knowing the bond that was between these brothers on the bus that make this so difficult, but somehow there is feeling of spirituality I have about them being together in the right place at the wrong time. I say the ‘right place’ only because hockey, and being with my team, always felt like the right place. It is also why I feel so many mixed emotions in the sense that it could have been any of my teams I was a part of the buses that I rode that were in the ‘right place’ at the wrong time.

I have spent every day since April 6th with a very heavy heart. In my previous employment I have had the unfortunate task of having to respond to and investigate a workplace fatality, and I can tell you it’s something that changes you forever. You can never un-see what you saw and having to ask tough questions and forget what you heard from people who were witness to such tragic events. It is nothing short of life changing, I promise you that. You are never the same person again.

I feel so very deeply sorry for the first responders, and all those who were making the trip up to Nipawin to support the Broncos that day. I feel so sorry for people like the Broncos Team Chaplain whose address at the Humbolt vigil audience made everything seem so much more real to us understanding the magnitude or ripple effect of the accident that he and his kids had the unfortunate fate to drive up onto to assist. I feel so sorry of the sounds, and the darkness of walking through the shadow of the valley of death he described to us and the rest of the world. There is so much tragedy to this event, it’s still so very hard to wrap your head around it. It seemed to never end – from a trucker with only two weeks of driving experience who appears to have gone through that Stop Sign, to the massive casualties and the permanent disabilities suffered by survivors, and of course the unimaginable mix up of two players misidentified in all the chaos, and the unimaginable emotions the families had to go through within that misidentification.

I was trying to stay distracted by one of my favorite sporting events of the year, (I used to book holiday days just to be home to watch it); the Masters golf tournament – but I just couldn’t get into it. My heart and thoughts were in Humboldt with those families who were going through such devastation. I kept looking at my phone for updates. It just seemed so unreal. I felt like I wished there was a way to help, but there was that lingering feeling when there is nothing you can do but watch the carnage unfold.

I got a text from a friend as I sat watching the Masters, but all the while thinking about nothing but the situation unfolding in Humboldt, wondering if we could pull together a candle light vigil at our very own arena at the same time as the one in Humboldt. I thought it was a great idea. With only a few hours to do it, I made a few phone calls and arrangements were made, and we were able to do just that. That was all we could do I think in that moment of feeling like you wanted to help, but didn’t really know how, was to just be together with others feeling the same way as so many no doubt were.

For me, and for others I think, it certainly felt right (not that there was a right or wrong place) to be at the arena for this. We gathered in the arena lobby, where we showed support for Humboldt, watched the vigil at Humboldt and were just there for each other. There was a certain comfort in being together with past players I had the good fortune and pleasure to have coached in the past, one of whom was leaving shortly to go to Saskatchewan to contend for the Allan Cup. It was a moment for us to stand together with other who had left that very same lobby many times in the past to get on the team bus to go play the sport we love most.

As a parent of two young children, I find myself affected by tragic events like these on another, deeper, level. There is no parent out there that would not give up their life to save theirs –and I often find myself wondering how these parents will get through this. Maybe it’s more likely they never will, they just cope as best they can, and they will need our continued support, and will get it.

One thing about small communities like ours – no matter if we are talking about Humboldt, Ponoka, or the hockey community in general, we are good at rallying around the people who need our support the most, and we will all continue to do so moving forward. It makes me proud to see the outpouring of support and how communities come together in times like these.

Just like nothing feels as perfect as a moment of flawlessness on the ice, I know nothing felt as perfect to this brotherhood of Broncos as getting on the bus that day to make that one last trip to immortality together. I also know there is no bond as strong as one that compels brothers to bleed for one another – on, or off, the ice. And fortunately (knock on wood) I can only imagine there will never be a bond as strong as the one the survivors, surviving families, and those families and friends who have suffered such immeasurable loss will have with each other for the rest of their days.

I take solace in the fact that these young people died while doing what they loved. They loved their families, they loved hockey, they loved going to war with each other, they loved their communities, and most importantly, they loved each other.

In all this tragedy and darkness, these warriors have shone a light brightly for all of us to see and remember. A light that shows the good qualities of people in what has been a world of so much negativity and darkness it seems of late. The Humboldt Broncos have shown us what love and brotherhood and supporting each other is all about. They have taught us that even when things are at their darkest hour, you get back on that bus together and, you will move forward together- stronger than ever, even with complete strangers.

These kids, coaches, trainers, statisticians, radio play by play announcers, were so full of passion – full of life, and full of pride for their team and their community.

They are, and we will all forever be #HumboltStrong.

Justin Kelly writes a blog about going from oil boom to being at home with his kids on www.iammistermom.com.