Editor, The Gazette:
Last Friday evening the heart-breaking news of a traffic accident involving a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team spread across Canada. Over the next several hours Canadians from coast to coast were in shock when the number of fatalities became apparent.
The country is mourning 15 individuals, including 10 junior hockey players and their two coaches. A team statistician, radio announcer and the bus driver also lost their lives.
Among the deceased is Jaxon Joseph from Edmonton, Alberta, whose father Chris Joseph played in the National Hockey League. During the 2015-16 KIJHL season hockey fans in Grand Forks watched Jaxon display his hockey skills on the ice at the Jack Goddard Memorial Arena. He was in his first year of junior hockey, playing for the visiting Beaver Valley Nitehawks.
I contacted Terry Jones, long -time head coach of the Nitehawks, asking him about Jaxon Joseph’s time playing in Beaver Valley. He describes him as a “real tall, gangly young man with a larger than life smile.” He added that Jaxon had “a remarkable ability to score.”
Border Bruins fans can attest to that, as game statistics reveal that Jaxon scored a goal in a game against the Border Bruins on Sept. 18 and followed that up with two goals against the Bruins on Oct.17.
After 35 games he transferred to the Surrey Eagles of the BC Hockey League.
Terry remembers Jaxon as a happy-go-lucky kid who exuded happiness and positivity. He added that “Jaxon was a champion ping pong player in the dressing room!”
The Beaver Valley coach let me know that he spoke with Jaxon’s father, Chris, on Sunday, two days after the accident which took his son’s life. He describes it as “a very difficult and heartbreaking conversation.”
In a piece for Macleans magazine the day after the tragedy, writer Mark Spector made a striking comment: “We tend to overbake the ‘hockey is everything’ analogies in Canada. But until you’ve been to those rinks in places like Nipawin or Kindersley, ... it’s hard to completely digest what a junior hockey team like the Broncos means to a community like Humboldt.”
Local junior teams and their players develop a bond with the community. For many players that connection can last a lifetime. One example is the connection between the billets and the players. The Nitehawks coach said that Jaxon’s Beaver Valley billet family was having a very difficult time with the tragic news of his death, even though he was with them only five months.
Terry Jones summed up his feelings this way, “Jaxon (Joseph) was a tremendous young man, and we painfully feel his loss.” The President of the Humboldt team, Kevin Garringer, remarked, “The team has been an incredible rock in this community. These young athletes are incredible.”
And so should it be in Grand Forks. The local junior hockey team, the Border Bruins, is an important entity. The team should mean a lot to all of us who live here.
Gerry Foster,
Grand Forks