Two fathers

Their sons were among the sixteen people who were killed in a bus accident on a cold afternoon in Saskatchewan. Chris Joseph and Scott Thomas lost their sons in the same way, but in grief, their roads diverged.

- Mitch Moxley

April 2018

On an arrow-straight stretch of prairie highway, a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team traveled northbound toward the town of Nipawin, Saskatchewan, home of the rival Hawks. It was a gorgeous late afternoon, bright and clear.

The Broncos were the pride of Humboldt, a farm town of about fifty-nine hundred in central Saskatchewan, where players from out of town live with local families and hockey is like a religion. The team was heading to an elimination playoff game, but the mood on the bus was upbeat: Players, some as young as sixteen, joked around, listened to music, and believed, against the odds, that they could still win the series. They had dyed their hair mustard yellow in playoff solidarity, and somebody had sneaked a half bottle of rum onto the bus in case of celebration.

The Broncos were the most successful team in the history of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL) yet had been on a bit of a losing streak in recent years. That season was a turnaround year, however, thanks in part to the team's coach, Darcy Haugan, a forty-two-year-old husband and father from Peace River, Alberta, who believed in recruiting players of good character. When a snowstorm hit town, Haugan would cancel practice and send his guys out with shovels to help the community dig out. He was a fan of one-liners and dad jokes and said things like It's a great day to be a Bronco, gentlemen.