By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
As Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial went silent on Saturday night to pay respect for the victims of the junior hockey bus crash in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, the magnitude of the tragedy hit Nathan Paetsch much harder.
The bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos Tier II junior team collided with a tractor-trailer in near Tisdale, Sask., near the intersection of two highways late Friday afternoon. Of 29 passengers on the bus, 15 died. The other 14 were injured.
Humboldt has a population of around 5,900. That’s where Paetsch was born, on March 30, 1983. He grew up about 25 miles north, in LeRoy, essentially the distance from Le Roy, N.Y., to Rochester. There’s no hospital in LeRoy, which doesn’t have 500 residents.
“My heart breaks for those parents, those families, those kids,” Paetsch said late Saturday night after the Amerks 6-5 overtime victory over the Toronto Marlies. “Everyone’s in mourning.
“It’s just awful. It’s hard to speak about.”
Paetsch has made Spencerport home for more than a decade, going back the start of his pro career with the Amerks. But the rest of his family is back in Saskatchewan. His parents, Brenda and Rick, still live in LeRoy. His grandmother, Anne Bendig, lives in Humboldt. He has friends in Humboldt and phoned one on Saturday.
“Everybody knows everybody there,” Paetsch said. “I grew up watching the Humboldt Broncos. I think the first higher-level hockey game I ever saw was in Humboldt. I went to the Broncos hockey camp when I was a little kid.
“It’s been a tough day.”
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