The Power of the Hockey Community

Friday night, the unthinkable happened and shook the hockey community to its core.

I was sitting in the Tobias Room in Ritchie Dining Hall here at Adrian College when I checked Facebook. I, along with the rest of our MD1 team and their families and supporters had all been in the Tobias room for the past 3 or so hours celebrating the team and their season's success. I had tried to check Facebook plenty of times prior to that point in the evening, but this time, it actually loaded, but only enough for me to see one new post.

It was a post from Hockey Ministries International:

I was perplexed, so I took to the "trending" tab on Facebook to see that a bus had crashed, a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League had been t-boned by a semi-trailer. All that could be confirmed at the time was that there had been fatalities. No numbers, not word on how many lived, no word on what happened.

Just death and loss.

Death and loss that was felt nearly 1,500 miles away by myself and everyone else here in Adrian, Michigan.

Adrian is not a hockey town by any means. We have 7 hockey teams here, 10% of our school plays hockey, but we are not a hockey town. Our community is small here in Adrian, only a few hundred belong to the lucky club that is the hockey community, or more like family, at Adrian College.

But Humboldt, SK? They're a hockey town, a town that I would later on in the night learn was of about 6,000 people who love their junior hockey club.

How could they not? Anyone who has spent their summer in a rink, who has been there an hour after the game is over after a tough loss or a big win just to see the players knows that there is no better place to grow up than a hockey arena.

So there I was, sitting amongst the people who have become my family in the past two years celebrating then end of the season when 1,500 miles away, the Humboldt hockey community was devastated beyond imagination.

It could've been anyone.

Every hockey player from high school to the pro ranks has rode the bus, every hockey player period knows the dangers of road trips in the dead of winter during a blizzard or first thing in the morning driving to the rink on black ice. It's something that only crosses the minds of mothers and fathers who are sending their boys off to do what they love.

I've loaded the bus before, I've slept on a bus before and I've watched our boys load and unpack the bus more times than I can count. I've been there as they leave, I've been there as they get home late into the night or early in the morning.

Bus trips are sacred, they're when you bond with your teammate. The bus ride home after your first road win in program history, the time that you packed the bus the wrong way, the time you got locked in the bathroom on your first bus ride, it's the memories you make on the bus that you hold onto for the rest of your life.

You don't think about what would happen if you get t-boned by a semi-trailer, you don't think about what would happen if you go off the road when you're on the bus, you think about your team, the game you're about to play or just played.

You don't get on a bus thinking you're not even going to make it to the rink.

By the time I got back to my house that night at around 12:30, the posts were pouring in from all over Twitter sending their love to the Humboldt Broncos and their community.

By 3:00 that morning, fourteen were confirmed dead.

Fourteen.

That's half of the people on board, that's half of a freaking hockey team.

Gone, just gone.

In the blink of an eye.

How do you wrap your head around it? How do you process that? I haven't the slightest and I cannot imagine what the people closest to those in the Humboldt community are feeling and have been feeling since Friday night when the news first broke.

Later on, it would be released that among those who had died were the coach, assistant coach, play by play broadcaster, the statistician and 11 of the players, the death toll rose to 15.

It's incomprehensible.

By Saturday night, a video showing each of the players and coaches who had passed was circulating Facebook and Twitter. They put up each player's bio from the team's website with their age, position and hometown.

The youngest was just sixteen, sixteen. This kid has his whole life ahead of him and it was gone in an instant. He was 16, still in high school, he was turning 17 the next week. The captain, the leader of the team was 20 years old, the same age I am, he was the leader, the one who held the team together in losses and victories.

This team was without their head coach, their assistant coach and their captain to process this horrific incident.

The Humboldt Broncos may have lost their teammates, their brothers and two of their coaches, but they and their community soon had the entire hockey community behind them.

Every NHL game that was played Saturday night held a moment of silence to honor the victims of the crash, the Blackhawks and Jets wore BRONCOS on their nameplates through their entire game instead of their own names. Teams stood side by side, gathered around center ice to pay tribute to these young men who are gone far too soon. The USA Hockey National Championships in Plymouth, Michigan paid tribute, holding moments of silence prior to their games Saturday. Junior teams across North America paid tribute as well as NHL teams who donated their 50/50 money to the families.

Over $6 million has been raised to help the families and the community of Humboldt, SK and it hasn't even been five days since our hockey community was shaken to its core.

And last night, hockey players around the world all left their sticks out on their porches in memory of the 15 who died. It all started with a tweet from a TSN reporter and soon spread across the globe. Even on the campus of Adrian College, we had sticks out on our porches, outside our front doors to our houses and apartments and even outside the door into our dorm rooms. And on Thursday, we'll all be wearing our jerseys to show our support of the Humboldt Bronco community.

The hockey community is a powerful, powerful thing.

So maybe there isn't an easy way to process a terrible loss like this one, but I can guarantee that processing a tragedy alongside the millions of members of the hockey community around the world just might be a little bit easier than doing it all alone.

So hold your teammates close to you, don't take the bond you have for granted with your band of brothers and sisters. Hold them close to you, thank them for the bond that you share, thank them for having your back.

Because you never know when it will all be gone in an instant.

The hockey community is a powerful thing, I've known it for the past 11 years and now the rest of the world gets to see it on display as we all stand behind our brothers and sisters in Humboldt, Saskatchewan.