Sticks Out

Jess Briggs1 Comment

Welcome to the last ever installment of Slapshot Stories!  This week, while there are many stories that I could be writing about this time of year, especially with the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs having started Wednesday night.  There really is no better time of year. #BecauseItsTheCup  (For transparency’s sake, I have defaulted to a Pittsburgh Penguins fan.  I see it as a responsibility to western PA.)

Players celebrating with "Believe in our team" written out.

However, in the past week, an event occurred that shook the entire hockey world, and one that I feel too attached to to not blog about.  On Saturday night, a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team got into a horrific crash in northern Saskatchewan, Canada.  Sixteen people have since passed away: ten players, two coaches, and four other staff members.  Many others on the bus were injured and remain in the hospital, some still in severe condition today.

To many, this is seen as just a terrible accident, something that shouldn’t have happened and took away many people far too soon.  And that it was.  But to those in the hockey community, it hit so much harder.  Junior hockey, teams for high skill, sixteen to twenty year old kids, is a major institution throughout Canada.  It is  something that many towns hold very dear.  I see myself as a part of this community, because my town is one of very few in the United States that has a junior hockey team (based out of a Canadian league).  And I could not fathom the feelings I would be having right now if it were ten of our boys we had just lost.

As you can probably tell from the entire topic of this blog, I am very passionate about hockey, especially my hometown junior team of the Erie Otters.  The experience of watching players grow, develop, and then move on through this league is one that cannot be fully compared to any other (aka college hockey doesn’t hold a candle, sorry NCAA).  The attachments fans form with their players are deep and lasting, many being preserved as they move to higher levels of play.  If, at any point, let along the middle of a season, any one of our players passed away, the fan base would be devastated.  I know I would be devastated.  Let alone loosing half of the team at the beginning of the postseason, after an entire regular season of attachment to the group.

The entire hockey community understand how significant of a loss this is for the people of Humboldt.  And this is why I decided to write about this somber of a topic for my final post.  The hockey community has showed me over the last few days why I love it so much.  In times of need and despair, we will come together to provide support and hope.  Before many hockey games played in the first days after the crash, the opposing teams gathered at center ice in a circle for a moment of silence to honor the victims.  In fact, almost all of them did.

In addition to these memorials, the #SticksOutforHumboldt movement was started as a show of solidarity with those effected.  It involves placing a hockey stick outside of the door, sometimes with candles.  The movement has gone even further than these pre-game ceremonies and allowed individuals to show their support as well.  We are all Humboldt fans right now, and this is how we show it.

 

Just some final tweets that hit me hard and I couldn’t leave out:

https://twitter.com/rsuter20/status/983433593539190784

This was posted by a billet mom, someone who houses these players as many play away from their hometowns.  She lost two of her three players.  (One was mistakenly reported as having died when she posted this tweet, causing her to believe she had lost all three.)

One final story is that of Ryan Straschnitzki, an 18-year old defenceman whose lower body was paralyzed during the crash.  He has already started talking about his goals to get back on the ice, if not traditionally then as a member of Team Canada’s sled hockey team.  These lofty goals produced what I find to be the most moving quote to come out of this situation.  “No one doubt him.  He is carrying the weight of (16) on his back.”

One thought on “Sticks Out”

  1. Jess, this was a beautiful and moving post. I honest to goodness got a little teary-eyed. I am not a sports fan (mostly because I cannot understand the rules and whatever the heck is going on), but I can understand how important hockey, or any sport for that matter, is to their fans. That is so incredibly sad that all of those people passed away. That is truly heartbreaking. It was beautiful to see all of the hockey teams rallying together to show their support. People really are beautiful creatures. Overall, I really enjoyed this post!

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