By Matthew Gourlie
With heavy hearts the Swift Current Broncos honoured the victims of the Humboldt Broncos in the best way they knew how: by playing some great hockey.
The Broncos skated to a 4-0 win over the Moose Jaw Warriors Saturday in Game 2 of their Western Hockey League Eastern Conference semifinal series. The win ties the series 1-1 heading back to Swift Current Tuesday night.
“It was definitely something that none of us have gone through before. There are three guys on our team who lost best friends yesterday,” said Broncos defenceman Colby Sissons. “For them to be playing out here today… all we want to do is support them and they came out and had games of their lives.
“With the connection of the name and our history and their sad history now, we’re playing for them. That was one of the best 60 minutes we’ve played as a group.”
The entire hockey world was feeling Humboldt’s loss, but Swift Current — who went through their own tragic fatal bus crash in 1986 — felt it acutely.
“It was a different day preparing for a game. Everyone was really quiet,” Sissons said. “(Friday) was just a hockey game, but today we wanted to do this for them.”
Before the game started, Warriors captain Brett Howden and Broncos captain Glen Gawdin skated silently to an illuminated centre ice circle. Players for each team slowly filed off the bench and stood next to an opponent to fill the circle before a moment of silence.
Today, we are all Broncos. #HumboldtStrong ?? pic.twitter.com/o6KKbMRuC2
— The WHL (@TheWHL) April 8, 2018
“It was pretty emotional during the moment of silence. That was a pretty special moment,” Howden said. “It’s just a really crazy time. There’s no game plan for this. It’s pretty devastating what happened.
“We say every day that we take life for granted. You want to live for every single day because you don’t know what could happen. You don’t want to live taking life for granted, but we do. It’s human nature. It just shows you that things can happen in a blink of an eye and it’s a really heart-breaking time.”
The Warriors got off to a great start and earned a power play 1:03 into the game. The Warriors took the first six shots of the night, but Broncos killed off the only power play the Warriors would earn. From there the Broncos out-shot Moose Jaw 18-3 and subsequently built a 3-0 lead by the middle of the second period.
“We didn’t play our team game,” Howden said. “We got away from it and when we get away from what brings us success a game like tonight will happen. We got beat pretty good. We didn’t have a chance in this game because we didn’t give ourselves a chance.”
Glen Gawdin opened the scoring with a power-play goal after a great move by Alexi Heponiemi in the corner created the chance.
Giorgio Estephan doubled the Broncos lead early in the second and Tyler Steenbergen scored his eighth of the playoffs to give the visitors some breathing room.
The Warriors began the third period with a good push, but Howden could only manage to strike iron for the second time in the game. Kaden Elder won a foot race to score into an empty net.
Stuart Skinner needed only 20 saves to earn his second shutout of this post-season.
“He’s been good all playoffs. Obviously in the first round we had some nights where we didn’t have his back and he got pulled, but when we can get in shooting lanes and tie up sticks it definitely makes his job easier, but it’s a six-man unit out there,” said Sissons who had three assists.
Brody Willms made 26 saves for the Warriors.
