On April 6, the news of the horrific bus crash involving the Humboldt Broncos of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League rocked the hockey world. While en route to a semifinal playoff game, a semi-truck crashed into the Broncos’ bus. The crash claimed 16 lives while injuring 13 others.
Over the ensuing days, people from around the world rallied in support of both the survivors of the crash as well as the Humboldt community. A GoFundMe account set up for the victims and their families swelled to over $15 million, the second-highest amount ever raised on the site. In addition, people left hockey sticks on front porches as tributes, while teams from across the NHL paid tribute with moments of silence. If there’s one positive aspect to come out of the tragedy, it’s that it showed just how tightly-knit the hockey community is across the world.
Just over 2,400 miles away from Humboldt, the Tampa Bay Lightning prepared for the start of their first round playoff series against the New Jersey Devils.
While thousands of Lightning fans poured into Amalie Arena for Game 1 wearing blue and white, Bolts fan Dan Gitzler took a different approach. A 41-year-old former Marine, Gitzler wore a camo Lightning jersey he received as a birthday gift from his wife, Kim, for Military Appreciation night earlier this season.
Gitzler left the jersey blank until the day of Game 1, when he had it personalized with the number 16 on the back.
The name above the number? Humboldt.
Gitzler decided he wanted to create something in honor of the 16 victims of the crash.
“Originally I just had the jersey made for myself, it was a birthday present from her in December,” said Gitzler. As we went to Military Appreciation Night in our custom Marine Corps jerseys that I had made. At the arena that night, we bought a Military Appreciation jersey but I bought it blank.”
“Then the Humboldt thing happened. We had tickets to Game 1, I decided the morning of the game, I was gonna have it numbered and lettered. The number 16, for the people lost. The motivation was to show my respect for those 16 people and that community around them at the Lightning playoff game.”
Growing up in Tampa, Gitzler was a fan of the Lightning during the inaugural season in 1992-93, but lost track of the team and the sport of hockey when he enlisted in the Marine Corps and served for six years.
Serving as an avionics technician, Gitzler worked on aircraft, most notably F/A-18 Hornets. He served all over the U.S. and overseas, including a stint in Japan. Although he had lost touch with the sport while serving in the Marines, his interest revived when he met his wife three years ago.
“He said, what do you wanna do for a date? And I said we’re going to a Lightning game, what do you think? That was it, it was on from there,” said Kim Gitzler with a laugh.
It didn’t take long for Dan Gitzler to reacquire his interest in hockey. “Jeff Vinik, I don’t even think the guy makes a dollar on the game; before you even walk in the door, he’s already spent $50,000. The stuff they do for the community, with the street hockey leagues and the development leagues, the kids leagues, they had the sled hockey team for the kids. There’s Thunder Nation, the ThunderBolts, multiple fan groups out there who do stuff to support each other and support the community.” In addition, his stepchildren, 18-year-old Tyler and 20-year-old Keely, are also big Lightning fans.
Following the positive reception he received at Game 1, Gitzler decided he would do whatever it took to get the Humboldt jersey to every Lightning playoff game.
“I was like wow, this was a great feeling to represent these 16 souls at a home game,” said Gitzler. “How cool would it be for this jersey to go to every game?”
A member of the Lightning fan group ThunderBolts, Gitzler posted a message on their Facebook page asking for volunteers to wear it for the away games in the series. It didn’t take long to find a taker, as Rebecca Taylor, another member of the group, wore the jersey for Games 3 and 4 in Newark since she already had tickets and was going anyway.
“Literally, by the time I finished typing and hit enter, it took about six seconds,” Gitzler added. “She wore it to the airport to see the team off, then she started driving. Drove 16 hours non-stop, took a two-hour nap, then went to the game.”
While Gitzler was told that Taylor witnessed Lightning fans in Newark catching a lot of verbal abuse from Devils fans, she received nothing but positive comments from those same fans due to the Humboldt jersey.
“She told us specifically that other Lightning fans were being heavily taunted, which you would expect during playoff hockey,” Gitzler added. “They were being cursed at and having things thrown at them. But her? Nobody said a word to her other than ‘thank you.’ They took pictures, some people shook her hand.”
Gitzler also created a Twitter handle, @HumboldtJersey, which now has almost 350 followers. He reached out to the SJHL with the idea of sending the jersey to Saskatchewan for the league’s championship series.
The league took him up on the offer, and he had the jersey shipped up to Canada for the remainder of their final series, which the Nipawin Hawks won in seven games over the Estevan Bruins. Despite not arriving in time for Game 5, the jersey did make it for the final two games of the series before being returned to Tampa for the rest of the Lightning’s playoff run.
The jersey has already been signed by a several Lightning players, including Braydon Coburn, Andrej Sustr, Cedric Paquette, Victor Hedman, Yanni Gourde, Brayden Point, Mikhail Sergachev, Louis Domingue, and Cory Conacher, as well as Devils forwards Brian Boyle, Travis Zajac, and Blake Coleman.
Although Gitzler would like to see as many names as possible on the Humboldt jersey, that’s not the ultimate end game.
While he’d love to wear the jersey while witnessing a Lightning Stanley Cup win, he wants to keep it front and center throughout the playoffs regardless of how long the Bolts’ run lasts. “If the Lightning get knocked out, I wanna work with the team that knocks them out to take the jersey. Nobody has to wear it, but take it to the games and let it be there in some way, some fashion. I’d like to at least have the team captain sign it with the “C” and the team name under the signature just to represent their team name on the jersey.”
“We’re gonna collect all of the photos, all of the interviews, all of the articles and compile it into a scrapbook. Then we’re gonna donate the jersey and the book to the Humboldt Broncos. We want them to do with it whatever helps them.”
Gitzler added, “It’s not about its monetary value to me as a collector or a fan, it’s about the message, it’s about helping.”
Towards the end of our conversation, I asked Gitzler about what made this tragedy resonate not only with him, but with hockey fans as a group.
“How many of us were 16-year-old kids on a bus going to a wrestling match, a football game, a track meet or have kids that have done that or how many of us were kids that did that? A lot of people identify with that because you hear, ‘It could’ve been my kid,'” said Gitzler.
