By Dominic Abassi

Op-ed: Sanctuary of the team bus needs rebuilding after Humboldt tragedy

Apr 10, 2018 | 12:45 AM

NANAIMO — The image of a passenger bus laid on its side, its front end disintegrated and roof peeled back like the top of a tin can, implanted an indelible image of a real life nightmare.

Millions of Canadians wept and mourned 15 lives lost and 14 others forever altered after a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos hockey team collided with a semi truck south of Nipawin on Friday evening.

People found ways to show empathy and sympathy and ways to cope with the grief.

But within those millions coping is a population left staring at that picture, dissecting the hockey bags strewn among a trailer load of peat moss on the side of a northeastern Saskatchewan highway.

They’re staring at that picture because all it takes is a quiet room and closed eyes to place themselves in a seat on that bus in the moments before all hell broke loose.

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The sanctity of the bus gone for them.

Destroyed, disintegrated, its roof peeled off.

I’m not sure if the concept of “the bus” is universally understood. I’m not sure it can be.

But for everyone who has piled into a large vehicle and traveled to competition with their teammates, it’s understood.

I think perhaps I underestimated the impact my experiences on the bus had on my life.

On Friday night as I grappled with admittedly unfamiliar feelings of grief and sorrow, it became clear to me there was more to this tragedy than the loss of life.

I realized I had been on the bus in that picture…the one that no longer had a roof.

I was an 18-year-old living alone for the first time ever at the front of that bus with the driver’s microphone in my hand about to take my turn at entertaining my brothers with my rookie song.

In all of my self conscious fear I channeled my inner Axl and belted out the chorus of Sweet Child O’ Mine. The feeling of pride and inclusion I felt as my teammates pounded the ceiling in approval is one I can still feel today.

For four seasons, I learned to respect order on that bus. I was taught what it meant to be a teammate, a friend, a brother. I forged bonds with people who my children now call uncle.

There’s something indescribably empowering about being surrounded by like-minded people walking the same journey in life, striving for a common goal. 

The bus is its own world. A place where you feel invincible.

But you’re not and that’s a painful reality now impossible to ignore.

I can not escape the pain of placing myself on that bus as it hurtled towards that intersection and I knew I wasn’t alone.

On Monday, I made some phone calls and my hunch was confirmed.

Riding the bus was the first sign he “made it” for Michael Olson, former Nanaimo Clippers captain and coach and a native of Tisdale, Saskatchewan.

“You get to hop on a bus with your teammates and pop in a movie, experience something different than riding with mom and dad in a vehicle going to a game,” Olson said.

He recounted stories as though they were written on cue cards in front of him. A trip through Vernon when the brakes on the bus froze, the time they coasted through Prince Albert on a broken axle, driving two hours after a loss with no heater…in Saskatchewan…in the middle of winter.

Olson echoed my experiences in the wake of Friday’s news. He broke down a few times on Saturday. He knew, he said, exactly the feelings of anticipation, intensity and quiet focus the Broncos, their coaches, broadcaster and trainer were feeling as their destination neared.

He too had been on that bus.

“I know exactly what that mood was like at that point in time. Picturing what you have to do to help your team win tonight…All those emotions flooding through those young men’s minds and for that to come to an abrupt stop is absolutely devastating. There aren’t words in the dictionary to explain what everyone that’s been around the game of hockey is feeling.”

Those boys and those teams, Olson said, are what people in small towns in northeastern Saskatchewan rally around.

“Those boys are ingrained in those communities, part of the fabric of a prairie town that binds the people together.”

Dave Johnston, head coach of the Nanaimo-based North Island Silvertips, would likely break a calculator tabulating how many kilometres he has traveled on a bus.

“It’s a sacred place and something that each and every person on that bus takes great pride in. A great deal of memories you come out of hockey with as a player are on the bus. The movies, the rookie shows, all of those things that happen in amongst the sanctuary of the team are so precious. That’s been shattered and that’s what’s the hardest thing to come to grips with. That safe place has been exposed and that’s scary for all of us.”

He shared a story of a bus that was a little too loud for his liking following a tough loss as a coach.

“I yelled to the back of the bus, ‘You need to pipe it down!’ And the whole bus went completely silent. About 30 seconds go by and this 15-year-old kid yells up to the front of the bus ‘I love you coach!’ The whole bus just burst out laughing. Complete silence to complete laughter because of one goofy kid doing something. That’s life on the bus.”

Dave had been on that bus south of Nipawin too.

Thousands and thousands of us have.

A bus many of us never wanted to get off has become one our minds won’t let us escape.

A sanctuary is in need of rebuilding.

dom@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @domabassi