By Matthew Gourlie
Saturday the hockey world came together to honour and support the Humboldt Broncos.
Before their Western Hockey League playoff games, the Moose Jaw Warriors and Swift Current Broncos called a truce on their fierce rivalry to be brothers in arms and pay tribute to the Humboldt players and organization in a pre-game moment of silence and ceremony in the wake of the accident that claimed the lives of 15 people on the Humboldt team bus.
“It’s a big world, but it’s a very small hockey community,” said Trent McCleary, the Swift Current Broncos board chairman. “Hockey is global, but no one is more than one or two people removed from this tragedy.
“I can’t say enough of the hockey community. We fight tooth and nail and battle. We play hard against each other, yet when something happens they’re your brothers. We’re family. Family picks you up when you’re down and gets you through the hard times.
“Humboldt we’re there.”
There were discussions within the league about whether to play Saturday, but all of the teams agreed to proceed.
“There was a lot of discussion between the league, Swift Current and ourselves today about the game,” Warriors general manager Alan Millar said before Game 2. “The grief councillors talked about normalcy. That as long as the the players — the young people who are the most important part of our game — are surrounded by the right people, had support and were surrounded by friends, that change wasn’t the right thing. Normalcy was their recommendation.
“I think the game will be good for the players. At the end of the day I think the people in Humboldt and the players on that team would want the game to go on tonight.”
All of the active WHL teams met with their players Saturday morning. With all of the ties between the Humboldt organization and the WHL, commissioner Ron Robison said that their primary focus was on their players’ well-being.
“The most important thing is to support the players and everyone affected,” Robison said. “We’re making sure they get the professional attention they need when they need it. That’s being monitored very closely in all of our teams throughout the league. They’re getting counselling and have services available to them.”
He admitted that there were probably players who were reluctant to play Saturday as the league went ahead with a quartet of playoff games.
“There were certain players who had very close friends that were affected. They’re having real difficulty dealing with this and they’re going to have to determine themselves if they’re going to want to continue to play,” he said.
The Humboldt tragedy hit the entire hockey world, but it hit Robison very close to home.
“Many, many years ago I played for the Humboldt Broncos,” Robison said. “I was fortunate enough to get a pretty good sense of what that community is all about. It’s like many Saskatchewan centres where there is nothing more important to those communities than their hockey team. I know what the Broncos represent to that community and how important they are. It’s a very difficult time for the entire community.”
It also stirred up a flood of memories for the Swift Current Broncos and their community after they suffered their own fatal bus crash in 1986 that saw four of their players perish.
“It’s tough day in hockey. It’s a tough day for the country,” McCleary said. “For our organization it opened up some old wounds. We have an inkling of what Humboldt is going through right now. It’s a really tough time for their players, the families and the organization. We’re all here to support them.”
McCleary was a 14-year-old in Swift Current when the Broncos’ crash took place. He remembers well how the community came together.
“Everybody grieves in their own way. You can’t tell them how to grieve. There’s no right way to go through this — just day by day,” McCleary said. “They’ll get through it. They will. There’s going to be some dark days. It’s going to be hard. Look at the people talking about it nationally and globally. It’s going to be hard, but the whole world is behind them.”
There was a moment of silence in each WHL arena Saturday and teams wore Humboldt decals. Robison said that he has reached out to the SJHL and offered their support in any way they were needed.
He is also hopeful that Humboldt use Swift Current’s example of how their community triumphed over their tragedy.
“Swift Current will be very helpful in many ways. This brings back a lot of difficult memories for that community, but they found a way to cope,” Robison said. “All of our franchises in Saskatchewan called to say ‘how do we help?’ Everybody is reaching out to see how they can be of support to the Humboldt organization and the Saskatchewan junior league.”
The Warriors have been proactive in their approach to mental health and conduct mental health seminars every year for their players. They made support people available to their players and stressed there was no shame in asking for help whether it is now or in the coming weeks that they are struggling with the aftermath of the tragedy.
“There are connections on our team with players from Humboldt,” Millar said. “We didn’t really dive into any discussions of ‘do you want to play or not’ we just discussed with them what happened and how they were feeling.
“We really wanted to reach out to our players this morning. The priority was to tell them that if they don’t feel right, if there’s mourning, if there’s grief — today, tomorrow or next week — to make sure you’re coming to me. We have a lot of good people to support our players and we have those people available if any of our players need that.”
Evan Thomas was one of the 15 Humboldt Broncos players who died in the accident. He is the son of Scott Thomas who is enshrined in the Warriors hall of fame after patrolling the Warriors blue line from 1987-91. Evan Thomas also spent two seasons with the midget AAA Moose Jaw Generals and went to high school with some of the current Warriors veterans.
The Broncos have a number of veteran players from Edmonton and St. Albert where a handful of the older Humboldt players also hailed.
Swift Current head coach/general manager Manny Viveiros lost a former teammate in the Broncos bus crash in 1986.
“Manny talked with the players and it was hard,” McCleary said. “There are ex-teammates who were on the bus and all of a sudden now they’re gone. You go and play a hockey game and when you come back afterwards and one of your best friends has passed away. That’s devastating, let alone for 16-20 year old kids. Everybody is chasing a dream right now and everybody has been on those buses. Everybody has been driving across the prairies or across the mountains. It doesn’t matter if it’s Saskatchewan or Sweden, you’ve been on the bus. And if you’ve been on the bus before you know it can happen.”
Millar said that his phone is never off because so much of being a general manager for young players relates to their well-being off the ice as much as it is on the ice.
He spoke to a number of GMs around the league who were affected by the tragedy as the WHL family came together to support each other as well.
“This is a special game and there are a lot of special people in the game and we’re all together today,” Millar said. “It’s been a numb day and very difficult. You can’t help but think about your own people. Our thoughts are with everybody in Humboldt and anything we can do to support and help out, as true friends in the game, we’re here to help.”
