A Holy Trinity Academy vice-principal let staff and students know how important the Humboldt Broncos and the Saskatchewan community is to him.
“I took some time to ask people to share in prayer and hold up that community and that province, and those families, and the boys who lost their lives,” said HTA vice-principal Jamie Leidl. “We do have the power of prayer to help us ope with the hurt and that is our obligation as a Catholic community to pray for the families and that community.”
Leidl played for the Humboldt Broncos of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League in 1995-96 and, like all of Canada, he was rocked when 15 people – Logan Schatz, Jacob Leicht, Parker Tobin, Evan Thomas, Stephen Wack, Conner Lukan, Logan Hunter, Jaxon Joseph, Logan Boulet, Adam Herold, coaches Darcy Haugan and Mark Cross, statistician Brody Hinz, broadcaster Tyler Bieber and bus driver Glen Doerksen — were killed when the team bus collided with a tractor-trailer Friday night en route to a playoff game in Nipawin, Saskatchewan.
“I played junior in Humboldt and later returned there to teach Grade 6 at the Catholic elementary school,” Leidl said. “It is prairie junior hockey and the Humboldt Broncos are the heartbeat of that town. The fans, the community, the Broncos treat you like you were a superstar.
“It’s not just the hockey in a community like that, it’s the gathering, the being together. That is what a junior hockey team does in a place like Humboldt, Saskatchewan.”
He credits his experience with the Humboldt Broncos with landing him his teaching job.
Leidl was on his way to the Okotoks Oilers/Brooks Bandits game when he got a text from a friend that said: “Have you heard?”
“Then every time I refreshed Twitter, I knew it was bad,” Leidl said.
“I rode those buses to Nipawin, Flin Flon. It’s where you play cards, share laughs and enjoying being together and build memories… To have that taken away in just seconds…”
Leidl emailed his former Humboldt billets on Monday morning as well — a family that also took Leidl in after his playing days to become a teacher.
“I emailed to thank them for what they did for me, that I love them, I love the community and the Broncos… And for everyone to hold them up in prayer.”
The junior hockey world is a small one.
Blackie’s Mason McCarty knew three of the victims of the crash in Schatz, Lukan and Boulet personally coming through the ranks in elite hockey.
“I played against and with Logan Boulet from Lethbridge. I played U16 AB Cup tryouts with Conner Lukan,” said McCarty, a graduating forward with the Red Deer Rebels. “My buddy Logan Schatz, I spent the summer with him last year in Saskatoon, we played a lot of ball hockey together and we hung out.
“The thing that stands out most to me about them, I maybe didn’t know them for a long time, but they’re all stand up guys. Schatzy, when I walked into the dressing room for ball hockey, he was the first one to come over and introduce himself and make me feel like I’m part of the boys already and welcomed me with open arms. Things like that about a guy’s character, that really stand out.”
A veteran of 225 games in the Western Hockey League with both Red Deer and the Saskatoon Blades, McCarty fondly remembers bus trips throughout Western Canada as bonding experiences with teammates.
“When things like that happen it really puts life into perspective and it’s hard to comprehend,” McCarty said. “After a bad game, a good game, this or that, you get on the bus and you just want to visit with the guys and have conversations with them, complain or laugh about this or that.
“It’s almost like a safe haven, you’re travelling throughout the night thinking nothing can happen. You’ve got all the boys scattered around the bus, it’s where a lot of the memories are made, it’s where we spend a lot of time. To think that something like that happened, it’s pretty scary.”
The tragic collision hit home with the Okotoks Oilers’ play-by-play broadcaster.
Gino De Paoli began his career in radio as a junior hockey broadcaster covering the Broncos and teams in neighbouring communities. He said he spent plenty of time travelling on buses with the teams on the same highways where the collision occurred.
De Paoli said it’s hard not to think what would’ve happened to him if he was still working and travelling with the Broncos.
“I don’t know the conditions that happened that day, nobody does yet, but you feel pretty safe on the bus,” he said. “It’s kind of a safe haven.”
The crash took the lives of two broadcasters who were traveling with the team in Bieber, 29, the team’s play-by-play man, and Hinz, 18, a statistician and colour commentator.
De Paoli’s thoughts are with the two young broadcasters. While he didn’t know them, he said they were probably doing the job out of a love for the game and with dreams of moving up through the ranks over their careers.
“You just think, wow it’s over just with a snap of the finger,” he said. “He’s just doing what everyone else loved and that’s what made it really hard to go on the air on Friday and even more on Sunday.”
De Paoli started working at CJVR radio in Melfort, Sask. in spring 2010 where he was a junior hockey broadcaster until he moved at the end of the hockey season in 2011.
He said it was a good place to start his career because the Humboldt community has a lot of pride in its hockey team.
“Humboldt was a special town, they loved their Broncos and you could feel that when you went to the rink,” he said. “Everybody was happy to see you because you’re calling the game and radio out there is huge, compared to Alberta for junior hockey. It’s second to none.”
Now with the Oilers, he usually travels with the team to games across Alberta. The tragedy was on De Paoli’s mind while travelling to Brooks on Sunday with the Oilers for Game 6 of the AJHL South Final.
“I know yesterday, we were thankful for Gord Phillips, the bus driver for the Oilers and what he did for us,” he said. “There were a few extra thank you’s and smiles as we got off the bus.”
