The Driver Who Killed A Hockey Team
Words by Arya Gunde
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The Driver Who Killed A Hockey Team
Jaskirat Singh Sidhu arrived in Canada in 2014 as an economic immigrant from Punjab. A decade later, he found himself at the center of a nationwide media frenzy, facing deportation back to India in a nightmarish scenario filled with grieving souls and significant legal precedents.
April 6, 2018 will forever be etched in the memories of the residents of Humboldt, Saskatchewan, a small town 113 kilometers east of Saskatoon. With a population of just 6,000, Humboldt is rarely in the international spotlight. Just two days earlier, the town’s junior A junior hockey team, the Humboldt Broncos, had lost a triple-overtime thriller on their home ice in the second round of the playoffs. Despite trailing 3-1 in the series, the Broncos were determined to rally, gearing up to face the Nipawin Hawks in hostile territory.
The drive from Humboldt to Nipawin is approximately two hours long. Players, coaches, and staff prepared for the journey by loading their gear onto a coach bus, a familiar tradition for the former champions. Once everyone was on board, they set off along the prairie highways, determined to reclaim the series.
In rural Saskatchewan, it is common for passenger vehicles to share the roads with large transport trucks hauling heavy-duty loads. On that fateful evening, Jaskirat Singh Sidhu found himself behind the wheel of one of these trucks. After following the love of his life to Canada in 2014, Sidhu focused on building a future in his new country. Three months after their wedding, he sought a second job to support his wife, who had been accepted into a dental hygienist program in Toronto. On a friend's recommendation, he decided to pursue trucking.
The province issued Sidhu his trucking license after just one week of training and two weeks of supervised rides. He was on one of the first solo hauls of his career, carrying two trailers of peat weighing over 45,000 kilograms. The road was unfamiliar, and the load was tarped. As Sidhu approached an intersection, he missed a stop sign while checking his mirrors to ensure the tarp had not come undone.