Expectations, understandably, are that a few of the boys will be nervous. Rattled to the core. Shaking perhaps. But there is no way to duck it. So, Wednesday evening, the Nipawin Hawks will board a bus for the first time since the Humboldt Broncos’ tragic crash stunned the hockey world. The Hawks aren’t planning to go far. Just up the road to Tobin Lake, a 15-minute jaunt, for a team barbecue. Doug Johnson, general manager and coach, is bringing along his three-year-old daughter. “Just to show the players how safe I feel the bus is,” said Johnson. “We get that there might be some reservations. But the bus has always been a safe zone. Every player, when they get done playing, they remember the bus rides, they remember the locker-room, more than the games. “We just have to face any demons we may have about hopping on a bus.” In the immediate aftermath of the bus accident that killed 15 of its passengers Friday, Nipawin’s players had all gone home to spent time with their families. That was a necessary step. And so, too, is the current one – the re-embracing of routine. Tuesday, players returned to Nipawin and gathered for a 9 a.m. Walter & Bill Williams had gained enough experience and expertise in the business of auto thrills, to create their own show, the 'Trans-Canada Hell Drivers'. Trans-Canada Hell Drivers 1969. Its maker's own AMX and Mark Donohue-inspired Trans-Am. Got the 250-horsepower two-barrel 351 Cleveland V. Lasseter had a frame-off restoration in Canada from. Team meeting, followed by an off-ice workout. A practice was scheduled for 1:15 p.m. Really really ds english patch. “It’s been therapeutic in a lot of ways,” said Johnson, adding that Chris Beaudry – the surviving member of the Broncos coaching staff – will join the Hawks on the ice Wednesday. “A sense of purpose I know every expert, every professional, says you have to get back. You can’t just sit around. You have to get back, get moving. “There’s a time to be with family. The guys needed to give their parents a hug, their friends a hug. I needed to give my kids and my wife a hug. We’ve done that. Now it’s time to get back and get going. The only way you can make any sense of this is to keep playing.” But when exactly? The Hawks are waiting for a decision from the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. Their sincere wish is that the playoffs resume, which would see Nipawin face the Estevan Bruins in the league final. That, according to Johnson, is the right thing to do – even if the best-of-seven series requires six-hour bus rides each way. “The longer we drag our feet with an announcement, the worse it’s going to be I’m not happy with the procrastination on the league’s part,” said the 42-year-old. “You want to get back to work, get back to the routine. If we sit and do nothing, how the hell does this make any sense?” Added assistant coach T.J. Millar: “From the hockey standpoint, there does need to be a champion. We owe it to Humboldt to win it and to win it for them – to really have them help from above, if that makes any sense.” Agreeing wholeheartedly is Doug Sauter, who knows a thing or two about this kind of ordeal. When the Swift Current Broncos’ bus crashed Dec. 30, 1986, they were on their way to visit the Regina Pats, coached by Sauter. Thermoacoustic refrigeration seminar report pdf. He knew then that hockey needed to continue, despite the four deaths. Just like he knows in his heart right now the SJHL post-season must pick up where it left off. “Life goes on,” said Sauter, whose sons played in the league – Fritz in Estevan and Flin Flon, Kent in Nipawin. “Otherwise, the world would’ve shut down after World War I. And it would’ve shut down for sure after World War II. Anyone who says that (the season should be shut down) never played the game. They don’t know the competitiveness. They don’t know the effort and everything else. “Estevan and Nipawin worked very hard to get where they are. They would be devastated if they couldn’t play. The reason everyone is putting hockey sticks out is for support I haven’t seen anyone burn a hockey stick.” This doesn’t mean the retired old-school skipper is without feelings. In fact, talking about the four sticks he himself bound in a bridle and placed against his mailbox at his ranch near Yukon, Okla., Sauter choked up. “I don’t think there’s one person in the hockey world that wasn’t touched by this,” he said. “I watched the vigil and I had very mixed emotions – from sadness and loss to heartache to anger. I don’t understand, you know, like most people. Something like this, it just takes your breath away.” Imagine Sauter’s countless miles. After three years as teenaged goaltender came 36 seasons of coaching junior- and minor-league outfits – based (in order) in New Westminster, Butte, Abbotsford, Calgary, Springfield, Medicine Hat, Regina, Brandon, Winston-Salem, Wheeling, Oklahoma City, where he spent the final 15 winters of his career. “When I got on the bus and got under my blanket and got my pillow situated right,” he said, “I never had to worry.” All those highway hours added up to no accidents, although Sauter did sack a few drivers along the way. “You’d feel a sway and immediately jump up and look out the window to see what the hell is going on.” The most serious incident? One night, the bus struck a deer, which he claimed they stowed and ate later.
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