Broncos captain honoured at ball hockey tourney

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This article was published 07/08/2018 (2679 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The players prepared for it like it was any other game. They blasted music in the change room, carefully tended to their sticks and, in the hallway, did lunges and stretches to shake off any pre-game jitters.

If it weren’t for the crash, Logan Schatz would have been here.

It’s the first game of the 2018 men’s Canadian National Ball Hockey Championships, and nobody doubts that Schatz — a 20-year-old captain for the Humboldt Broncos who died along with 15 teammates and team personnel when the team’s bus crashed in April — would have been lacing them up if he got the chance.

“He was the ultimate leader,” said Kal Kastes, a Manitoba player and former teammate of Schatz. “We’re playing with him in our thoughts always, and I want to play as well as I can — for him.”

The Saskatchewan native was a top player on the Canadian ball hockey circuit, playing in a pair of world championships for Canada in places as far as Bratislava, Slovakia, and Sheffield, England. In 2015, when his home province couldn’t field a team for the U19 national tournament, he donned a Manitoba jersey; he then helped guide that team to gold. Last year, he made his debut for the Saskatchewan men’s team at the nationals. He was a shoo-in to lead the team for years to come.

Exactly four months after the crash captured Canadians’ attention and hearts, the tournament honoured Schatz, who’s remembered by former teammates for his leadership and generosity, by holding a memorial ceremony prior to the men’s tournament’s opening game on Monday night — a tilt between Manitoba and Saskatoon, a collection of players Schatz had played with or against for several years.

Before the match began, the players from both rosters lined up on opposing blue lines as Schatz’s familiar No. 20 jersey was perched at the centre of the floor. Most in the building wore green ribbons in support of the Broncos community, bits of fabric which became a national symbol in the weeks after the crash. Matthieu Gomercic, a Winnipeg-born member of the Broncos who survived the crash, dropped the ball for the ceremonial faceoff.

When Schatz’s parents, Bonnie and Kelly, stepped out of the audience, applause erupted from every corner of the arena. They were on hand to receive Logan’s jersey and to present the first-ever Logan Schatz Award, given out to the top junior ball hockey player in the country. Their other son, Brandon, was playing goal for Saskatoon, and he quickly joined his parents at centre.

“Logan loved scoring on his brother,” Bonnie Schatz said. “And he loved playing with him, too.”

Soon, the crowd honoured Schatz with a moment of silence, and many of the players couldn’t help but tear up. For such a young player, says Paul Kastes, Schatz’s former ball hockey coach, Logan managed to endear himself to not just one province’s sports community, but two.

“It shows how much of an impact he had on so many people,” his father said.

“He was the epitome of a perfect player,” Kastes said before the game. “I don’t think he could have understood how much he impacted his sport, his teams, his coaches and the people around him. We need to give him the respect he deserves.”

For the Manitoban team, that means retiring his jersey number. “It’s the right thing to do,” Kastes said.

As the players got mentally prepared for the game, a No. 20 jersey was placed smack-dab in the centre of the Manitoba change room. “Seeing it there makes me want to work that much harder,” Kal Kastes said.

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Once the game got underway, Saskatoon roared to open the scoring less than three minutes in. In net, Brandon Schatz looked calm as he steered away Manitoba’s shots. Soon, the home team managed to sneak a goal past him, and by the time the final whistle blew, Saskatoon trailed 3-1.

While the visitors were likely disappointed with the result, it was obvious the score was far from the most important thing in the moment. Hundreds of people had come together to remember Schatz, and with an award in his name, he won’t soon be forgotten.

“To win an award with his name on it would be a real honour,” said Dawson Pasternak, who helped lead the U15 Manitoba team to national junior gold earlier this month.

Were it not for the crash, Schatz would have been playing. “But to us, this is a way to show he’s not really gone,” Paul Kastes said.

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @benjwaldman

Ben Waldman
Reporter

Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University’s (now Toronto Metropolitan University’s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben.

Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.