Over a week has passed since the Humboldt Broncos bus collided with a semi near Tisdale, Sask., and the whole country is still mourning.
Like most of us, assistant coach for the St. Paul Jr. B Canadiens Corey deMoissac was stunned when news of the accident first broke. Unlike most of us, however, deMoissac had spoken with one of the victims just three weeks prior - Humboldt's head coach Darcy Haugan.
"He was just a stand up guy. He kind of took care of me. I didn't have a vehicle, so he would drive me to school and pick me up. He would take me to practice and he was nothing but a class act and all those things that you could ever ask for," recalled deMoissac.
deMoissac was 15 when he first met Haugan. The two young athletes played together for the Fort Saskatchewan Traders in 1992, a former team in the Alberta Junior Hockey League. They were billeted together that season.
Fast forward 26 years later, both men were helping coach junior hockey teams, and continued to keep in touch, speaking almost once a month. They often swapped information about players who may become available and strategies to try out in order to improve their respective teams - the Canadiens and the Broncos.
"(I) found out about his death through his sister's tweet, saying that he had passed, " recalls deMoissac, when looking back on the past week.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">My brother didn’t make it...</p>— invisigirlonfire (@DebbieJayneC) <a href="https://twitter.com/DebbieJayneC/status/982477587497664513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Haugan's sister, Debbie Carpenter, tweeted out "My brother didn't make it..." a few hours after the April 6 accident.
deMoissac's first response upon seeing the tweet was to message their old billet family, to tell them what had happened.
Haugan is survived by his wife Christina and two sons, Carson and Jackson, although deMoissac says he never had the chance to meet Haugan's family.
Looking back on his playing career and thinking about his current role as assistant coach of the Canadiens, deMoissac never thought twice about riding team buses on road trips. It was simply just part of the routine.
"When you play seven years of junior, play in college and then coach, you think of all the times you ride the iron lung around and you think it's the safest place on earth. It's one of this things where it's eye-opening," he said.
"For me, playing in B.C. (junior hockey) we used to drive the Coquihalla in snow storms, and you'd look out the window and there's 20,000 feet down if the bus driver made a mistake, and you never worried about it. It hits home because it's something you do all the time."
Last week, many citizens across Canada and the United States began leaving hockey sticks outside their doors in honour of the Broncos, and April 12 marked Jersey Day. Canadians across the country dawned sports jerseys to help honour the now 16 victims of the crash. A GoFundMe page set up for the family members of the team also surpassed $10.5 million, late in the week.
For deMoissac, he believes it's important to show support, even if people aren't connected to the victims.
"It gives you the opportunity to feel like you're helping. You feel as one, I guess. I think it's shaken the whole sports world in general . . . all these teams ride buses and can relate and I think that's the hardest thing."
While it would be understandable if this accident shook deMoissac a little, having been on countless team bus trips throughout his life, he's refusing any amount of fear to control his life.
"There are things in life that are tragic that can happen, but (you can't) sit back and dwell on it. You can't be scared your whole life."
