Hockey players in the Burnaby school district were among thousands of Canadians across the country who donned jerseys Thursday to show support for the victims of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash.
The Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team was headed to Nipawin, Sask. for a playoff game on April 6, when the team bus collided with a semi-truck at a remote intersection.
Sixteen passengers have died and 13 others were injured.
#JerseysforHumboldt, an initiative started by a group of B.C. hockey parents, saw people across Canada wear hockey jerseys to school and work Thursday in support of the community.
“It’s just a sense of solidarity and that sense of brotherhood,” said Maco Balkovec, director of an elite hockey academy based at Burnaby Central Secondary and coach of its midget prep team. “We’re all competing against each other, but we’re all in this really together, and I think it’s a good example of community coming together and people supporting other people in good times and bad.”
All three teams in the Grade-8-to-12 academy came to school wearing their academy jerseys, joining many other students and staff across the district who wore hockey jerseys of all kinds.
Balkovec said the tragedy has sparked an outpouring of support across the country, in part because long bus rides are so much a part of Canadian kids’ experience playing hockey and other sports.
“Those bus rides are a huge part of the bonding experience for boys and girls that are playing,” he said.
As a parent and as a coach of players just making their first forays into long team trips as they pursue their hockey dreams, Balkovec’s voice broke as he talked about the tragedy.
“All of our boys that are aspiring to play – and with the NHL playoffs opening this weekend, everybody dreams of playing there one day and hoisting the Stanley Cup – to see these boys have their dreams and their lives taken away from them in such a tragic fashion, I think it’s really hit close to home,” he said. “I’m getting emotional even talking about it right now.”
