Bible Embossing Creates Touching Tribute for Canadian Hockey Team

My role on the Swift Current Broncos is the team chaplain. With this being my second year serving in that role.

The Swift Current Broncos, in 1986 were in involved in a bus crash that tragically took the lives of 4 young men. It was an event that I was not alive for, but in my four years of living in this small town, I have noticed it’s a noticeable scar that has left a mark on many. The Swift Current Broncos wear a 4 leaf clover patch on the shoulders on their jerseys to remember those guys… so every time you come to the rink you’re reminded of those boys.

The Humbolt Broncos and the Swift Current Broncos play in two different leagues in Saskatchewan Canada. To say that they are in two different levels of hockey doesn’t matter. They obviously share the same name, and have been closely connected with players from either team running through each others organization … But, hockey is a brotherhood. It’s a small world. There’s friendships shared through guys on both teams, which makes a loss like this so much harder to deal with.

My position with the team is purely a background one with the guys on the team. I try and take them out for coffee or breakfast throughout the year to see how they are doing and encourage them. I played junior hockey for 4 years and know the feeling of leaving home at a young age to play hockey… by taking guys away from the rink and forgetting about the hockey aspect, and focusing on the life part of things is more or less my objective.

When the bus crash happened on April 6th, I had just gotten home from work and was about to put our two boys in the bath prior to an afternoon of playing outside. I got a text message from a friend that told me to pray for the Humbolt Broncos team because they were just in a serous bus crash. A couple hours passed. I didn’t put my phone down due to hitting refresh on news sites to check up on the boys and the team… my battery was just about dead when I got a call from my cousin who said he had heard there was 14 deaths. My cousin played college hockey with the head coach of the Humbolt Broncos and was talking with a bunch of old teammates who were close to the situation.

I decided to put my phone down after that. It was a numb feeling. I rode the bus from age 15-24 because of hockey… this is something you just don’t think would ever happen.

With my phone in my room, my wife came running back at me after she had heard it ringing and saw that the name was the coach of the Swift Current team. I picked up the phone and was asked if I could join the team in the morning to talk with the boys. The guys were in shock and a couple of the guys were especially struggling.

So, I left about 20 minutes later that night to the town where they were at…

The first person I called when I got the position of chaplain was actually the chaplain on the Humbolt Broncos team. He’s become a friend and someone who I bounce things off of from time to time. He was following the bus about 10 minutes behind when the crash happened… he saw what was left of the bus. He held the hands of guys that passed away. Cried with families at the hospital…. I encourage everyone to youtube “Pastor Sean Brandow – Humbolt Broncos Vigil Speech”. It’s powerful and needs to be watched by everyone.

I was approached by Sean’s (Humbolt Chaplain) old church that he used to pastor in our Swift Current area. They had talked to Sean wanting to help them in some way. Sean said, “Why don’t you help out the other Broncos? We are overwhelmed with support.” So the church asked if they could buy the team Bibles. Now, my philosophy as a Christian is to be an example first in foremost. My intention for the boys and team staff is not to push faith on them… but to support them with a loving Spirit. A Bible is something I hope they will pick up, but being as that it has been such an emotional run for this team, it’s very appropriate that this is something they get.

I have had the opportunity to be with he team before and after every game since the bus crash – praying before and after the games at the coaches request. The words that have come out of my mouth to those guys in those times are in that book. So I hope that one day they open up their Bible and read it. It was a privilege to walk along side these special guys during this time.

They just won a league championship and came up just short of a national championship. The joy that the championship brought those guys was something I’ll never forget! They were playing for a lot more this time around, with a few more Broncos from another team that were helping them along the way. Thank you, Desiree, for your help in creating these embossed bibles for our team.

Nathan, thank you for the honor of creating these tribute bibles for your team. Thank you also for the kind words you shared on Google about our company. We wish you and your team all the best in the future! — Desiree Colonna, CEO — Inkwell Designers