Fifteen people are dead after a collision on Friday between a Saskatchewan junior hockey team’s bus and a tractor-trailer in rural Saskatchewan. On Friday afternoon, the Broncos junior hockey team of Humboldt, Sask., were en route to a playoff game in Nipawin. Twenty-nine people were on board the team bus. At the intersection of Highway 35 and Highway 335, about 300 kilometres north of Regina, the bus collided with a tractor-trailer hauling peat moss. Both vehicles were obliterated by the impact. A 16-year-old player was among the dead, which included the coach, assistant coach, bus driver and a team announcer. The tractor-trailer driver survived. A dozen survivors are still in a Saskatoon hospital and four remain in critical condition.
The 15 people killed in the crash included many young players, their coach, a play-by-play radio announcer, an 18-year-old stats-keeper and a bus driver. The Saskatchewan Health Authority says four others are in serious condition and four patients are stable. Goalie Parker Tobin was killed and defenceman Xavier Labelle is alive, not the other way around, as originally reported. A fundraising campaign for the survivors and victims’ families has become GoFundMe’s most successful Canadian fundraiser ever, raising more than $6-million by Monday evening.
