STELLARTON, N.S. – When Jeff Green heard about the horrific bus crash that took 15 lives on a rural highway in Saskatchewan, naturally his mind raced back to February, 1984.
“It certainly brings back memories – and not very good ones,” Green said of the Humboldt Broncos tragedy.
Green who was a coach with the Scotsburn Major Bantam hockey team that lost three players – and a mom of one of the players – when a van they were travelling in crashed into the back of a truck near Amherst, on their way home from a tournament in New Brunswick.
Any parent who puts their kid on a team bus, no matter the sport, can identify with what happened in Saskatchewan on Friday.
“It’s something we can all relate to,” Green said. “It’s a complete tragedy and you wonder how those families are going to get through it.”
Not just the families and friends who are deeply affected – one billet family in Saskatchewan reportedly lost three players on Friday.
“Billets, they’re like a second family,” said Green. “It’s just terrible.”
**************************************************
"It’s funny you called me,” says Yvonne McChesney, when reached by telephone on Sunday afternoon.
“Because I was just texting with (former Crushers defenceman) Taylor Davis. He was my first billet.”
McChesney started taking in Crushers players in 2015 (she had four players stay on her home last season).
“I’ve only been doing this three years, but they’re like my sons.”
She first heard the news about the Humboldt crash late Friday and “when I woke up Saturday, it was with the heaviest of hearts. I haven’t stopped crying since.”
Just like a parent would worry, whenever the Crushers players are heading out on a road trip when bad weather is looming, she worries, too.
“Oh, I worry about them even when they’re only going out the door. Yes, they’re 19, 20 or 21 years old, but at the end of the day, they’re still kids.”
She lets them now that if they’re ever in any trouble, she’s just a phone call away.
“I tell them to call me, I don’t care what time it is. I never had any children, and I treat them like they were my own.”
**************************************************
Doug Doull spent part of Saturday fielding text messages from former and current players, coaches he’s known, even billets who open their homes to young hockey players.
He finally turned his phone off and did what a lot of Canadian parents do: took his son to the hockey rink.
“You grow up on a bus – I did, anyways,” said the Junior A Crushers coach, two days after 15 players, coaches and support staff with the Humboldt Broncos were killed in a tragic bus crash in Saskatchewan.
The Broncos are the same age group as Doull’s players with the Crushers: in their late teens, some of them 20, expecting long lives in front of them.
“When you’re in your early 40s, you look back and geez, you spend a lot of time on the bus,” Doull said.
“It’s an extension of your dressing room, your home. I can’t imagine what those parents are growing through.”
RELATED
- Windsor Hockey Heritage Society gathering public condolences following Humboldt Broncos tragedy
- TINA COMEAU: Yarmouth is a hockey town where we welcome our Mariners and our hearts break for the Humboldt Broncos
- Humboldt Broncos alumnus living in Glace Bay connecting with former teammates following tragedy
- P.E.I. about Humboldt: ‘Shocking’, ‘devastating’, ‘nightmare’
- UPDATE: Tobin misidentified as survivor by coroner
- Dyed hair, same build a factor in mix-up of Humboldt Broncos bus crash victims
- Colchester hockey community shares in tragic loss of young Broncos players
