Friday’s fatal crash involving the Humboldt Broncos’ team bus and a tractor trailer on a Saskatchewan highway that claimed multiple lives rang familiar with former members of another Saskatchewan hockey team who encountered a similar tragedy more than three decades ago
On Friday, RCMP officials confirmed a crash that occurred at the intersection of Highway 35 and Highway 335, north of the town of Tisdale resulted in multiple fatalities. The Humboldt Broncos bus was on its way to Nipawin at the time of the crash for the fifth game of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League team's best-of-seven semi-final series with the Nipawin Hawks.
Darren Opp, the president of the Nipawin Hawks, confirmed to The Canadian Press that the Bronco’s bus was T-boned by the transport truck.
Friday’s tragedy was not the first time a Saskatchewan hockey team’s bus was involved in a fatal highway crash.
On the afternoon of December 30, 1986, the WHL’s Swift Current Broncos bus was en route to Regina for a game against the Pats when the vehicle encountered ice, slid off an overpass and crashed into an embankment. The collision claimed four members of the Swift Current Broncos.
Sheldon Kennedy was a member of the ’86 – ’87 Swift Current Broncos and was on the bus at the time of the crash. Kennedy says he has been in touch with his former Broncos teammates and their thoughts and prayers are with the Humboldt Broncos.
“I want to say to the families that this is a time to pull together and not apart and to really be there to support one another,” Kennedy told CTV Calgary on Friday night. “I think what we’ve learned, speaking to others tonight that experienced the accident we were on, is the magnitude of the impact of an accident like this on all of our lives - individuals that survived, families that lost loved ones.”
“It’s real and it’s significant and I think that we need to understand that and we need to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to support one another.”
Kennedy says there are unanswered questions in the hours following tragedy and he empathizes with those affected.
“The families are looking for information, even the players are looking for information that are on the bus,” said Kennedy. “I think that it’s important that if we’re going to send out information, that it’s the right information. I just remember that being critical and how much that impacted because we have families waiting at rinks. When they hear that there’s fatalities and then they wonder if it’s their kid. I know the fear that my parents had thinking it was me.”
RCMP are expected to provide additional details regarding the fatal crash in the coming days. The cause of the crash, the number of fatalities and the extent of the injuries to the survivors have not been confirmed.
With files from CTV National and The Canadian Press
