Boschman shares message of hope for Humboldt at mayor’s prayer breakfast

The devastating tragedy involving the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey club was top of mind at this year’s Central Alberta Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast.

A full house gathered at the Prairie Pavilion at Westerner Park Tuesday morning for the annual event held to gather and recognize the mayors of Central Alberta and celebrate their support their leadership.

This year, however, the breakfast focused greatly about how people have rallied to support each other in the wake of Friday’s bus crash in Saskatchewan that claimed the lives of 15 people.

Guest speaker Laurie Boschman, who played junior hockey in Brandon before playing more than 1000 games in 14 NHL seasons, said the Broncos incident made him think back to his many years of riding buses across the prairies.

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“It could have happened to us. We’d go through the mountains in B.C. heading out to New Westminster and Victoria and places like that,” he reminisced. There are avalanches that could have happened, but as a 17 or 18-year-old you don’t think about those things. You don’t think that’s going to happen. You’re just there with your buddies talking hockey and doing life.”

Boschman, a Saskatchewan native who is part of Hockey Ministries International, says he drew strength from scripture to get through several incidents which greatly affected his own life, including the loss of his sister in a car crash and his wife and parents to cancer.

“I have a sense of empathy for what these people [from Humboldt] are going through, as do many other people.”

“Certainly the events of the tragic accident of Friday, April 6 will forever mark our country,” said Red Deer Mayor Tara Veer, “and I think pulled our community together around an issue. The whole point of it is that we need to pull together rather than pull apart.

“Certainly, the national and international response and demonstrations of solidarity over this incident reminds us of our commonalities, rather than our points of departure.”