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TSN Toronto Maple Leafs Reporter

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TORONTO – In all of the NHL, there likely isn’t a single player or coach without countless memories to share from endless hours spent riding a bus in junior hockey. It’s a rite of passage, a bonding experience that nurtures lifelong friendships and cherished recollections shared long after buses morph into chartered planes.

Most everyone in hockey has been there. And most every in hockey has been on a bus like the one carrying 29 members of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s Humboldt Broncos organization on Friday when it was struck in an intersection by an oncoming semi-truck. The collision happened 30 kilometers outside Tisdale, Saskatchewan as the team traveled to Nipawin for Game 5 of their semifinal playoff series against the Hawks. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police confirmed 14 people from the bus are dead, with 15 more injured, and three in critical condition.

Ahead of the Maple Leafs’ regular season finale against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday, a game that has no real meaning for either the playoff-bound Leafs or eliminated Canadiens, there wasn’t much conversation about the looming matchup. The minds of Toronto’s coach and players were thousands of kilometers away with the Broncos.

“I grew up right there in Saskatoon, it’s just down the road,” said an emotional Mike Babcock after the Leafs’ morning skate. “The hockey world is an unbelievable world, but you can’t make up for loss; you just can’t. It’s going to rip the heart out of your chest. We pray for those families and we’re thinking about them. I don’t know what else you say. A horrific, horrific accident. Tough day.”

Babcock’s voice broke as he spoke about the tragedy, a rare display of raw emotion from a coach who typically plays things close to the vest. But he wasn’t just a resident of Saskatchewan, he coached there as well. From 1991-93, Babcock was head coach the Western Hockey League’s Moose Jaw Warriors, busing down the same routes Humboldt, and innumerable other clubs, would have traversed untold times without incident.

“I know that road pretty good, it doesn’t seem like a big spot, it’s not in mountains or anything. But accidents do happen,” Babcock said. “You send your kid away and [I sent] my kids to junior hockey or college hockey or college soccer…this is supposed to be as safe as it gets, and it just goes to show you, you’ve got to embrace each and every day and each and every day you’re with your family, you better enjoy it.”

For years, Morgan Rielly relished every minute he spent surrounded by teammates on long bus rides to games, playing cards, watching movies or just reflecting on life as only wide-eyed teenagers with their whole lives ahead of them can. Rielly moved to Wilcox, Saskatchewan to attend Grade 9 at Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, a boarding school in the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League. After that he spent three seasons with the Warriors, growing up surrounded by the same small Saskatchewan communities now mourning their shared loss.

“We spent hours on those buses,” said Rielly. “In Grade 9, we would drive to Kamloops [British Columbia] from Wilcox, we drove to Chicago, drove all over the province of Saskatchewan, from Wilcox to Prince Albert. All in winter. And then in junior, you’re driving all over Western Canada on the bus. You want to be able to look forward to that time of going on the road with your teammates. You get to know a lot about one another, you get to know a lot about yourself. That’s a part of life growing up, playing hockey.”

And the camaraderie forged on the bus doesn’t end when junior does, either. Rielly said he’d been on the phone with some of his old Moose Jaw teammates, checking in after the accident began making headlines. Under better circumstances, those conversations still often segue to stories from the road, whether about a particularly long trek or a funny anecdote learned about a teammate along the way.

“It is a rite of passage. You compare [those stories] your whole lives,” Rielly said. “Even guys who don’t play anymore, you still talk about the bus rides – its memories that will never leave you. I remember in Grade 9, we used to travel from Wilcox to Prince Albert in the middle of winter on a school bus, and at the time it wasn’t something you wanted to do because it was cold and you didn’t have any food, but now when me and my buddies get together from Wilcox, those are the things you talk about. They create positive memories and something like this happens and it puts it all in perspective.”

The hockey world has poured its well-wishes and prayers towards the Humboldt community, hoping in some small way to help ease their pain. Tyler Bozak left his hometown of Regina as a teenager to pursue his hockey career in the British Columbia Hockey League, but like Rielly, he was on the phone Friday with friends and family, sharing in their collective heartbreak.

“Everyone is talking about it, hoping for the best in every situation,” Bozak said. “Being a dad now [to son Kanon, with another child on the way] and just thinking about parents involved, it’s tough. It’s a tragedy you can’t even put into words. It was kind of hard to sleep last night. I can’t imagine what everyone is going through back in Saskatchewan.”

Bozak holds dear his own memories of riding the bus for three junior hockey seasons, lamenting how safe he had always felt on those excursions and how young players may be robbed of that now. But he and Rielly were both optimistic about how the province of Saskatchewan and the greater hockey world would rally around the Broncos family, one of many small teams that held a huge place in their community.

“You can’t even understand. Going around and playing in small towns and being able to be a part of one of those teams is extremely special,” said Rielly. “That community and the other small communities around Saskatchewan, they live for hockey. I speak from experience – the values you learn playing in those communities stick with you for a long time. It’s tough to talk about for sure.”