Several veteran members of Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League teams will be trading addresses over the summer as they were selected to become the newest members of the Humboldt Broncos.
A dispersal draft of sorts, although we don’t yet know who was protected or why Humboldt’s management decided to pick these players, the ones chosen aren’t in an enviable position this year.
Estevan’s Blair Atcheynum was one of the players chosen after the Swift Current Broncos had their bus crash in 1986 and it took him another move, to the Moose Jaw Warriors, to become a star in the Western Hockey League.
These players that were taken in the Humboldt draft included some forwards and defencemen, including Carlyle’s Kyle Sargent, ex of the Yorkton Terriers. There was a good mix of experience and youth selected. No goaltenders were taken, though, which I found a bit odd but then there wasn’t likely to be many made available.
What the players do have in common with each other now is now a spot on what will be the most-watched SJHL team of all time – the team that tries to regain the footprint of the Humboldt Broncos.
When this team gets to camp in the fall, together with the remaining players on the Broncos’ list and roster, the task they’ll have will seem daunting. No other SJHL team has started a season quite like this. There will be ceremony after ceremony as the team visits other rinks for the first time and life will seem more than a bit like a sombre self-reflective time. These 17-to-20 year olds are going to have to grow up in a real hurry under that kind of scrutiny.
With no time to fully coagulate as a team, unlike a lot of teams in the SJHL that have a succession program where players are in the system for two to four years and become stars, these new Broncos are going to miss a pass or two and have a hit that doesn’t quite staple a guy to the boards in the way they’d like to.
But here’s the thing: along with all the national and possibly international scrutiny will come a lot of cheers. Who on earth next season will want the Broncos to lose? They’ll be everybody’s second favourite team next year, and players like Ahmed Ally will come out of this with a newfound confidence and maturity and by the time the playoffs hit, who knows how good they’ll be?
And while the crash won’t be forgotten any time soon, it eventually won’t be what defines either Humboldt or the Broncos. The product on the ice will provide its definition. There will be few in hockey circles who won’t have a good understanding of the Broncos’ path and those will undoubtedly transfer into some offers of post-secondary education for those players graduating from the team in the next few years.
So while the task seems daunting for those new players selected by the Broncos in the dispersal draft, the doors of opportunity have swung wide open for a few members of the hockey community. These kids will go to a place that will now embrace them as members of the team and city like no other junior team before them.
I don’t think I’m overstepping my bounds to wish the Broncos all the success in the regular season and playoffs this coming winter. Although the circumstances that brought the Broncos together may have been the most trying, they’re together now and I hope they can make the best of it.
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