Feb 14, 1984, my hockey team was involved in an accident on the highway, just outside of Amherst NS. We were travelling home from a weekend of hockey in Chatham NB. We had two vans filled with players, and numerous parents in cars along for the trip. The van I was riding in with 9 others, struck a tractor trailer that was experiencing mechanical failure and wasn't quite able to move itself out of the lane that we were travelling in. In that moment we lost four friends: John Allen MacDonald, Donald Gladwin, Shawn McKay and his mother Lee Marie McKay. Surviving the crash besides myself, were Frank MacFarlane, Greg Greene, Glenn MacLean, Ashley MacDougall and team manager Lauchie McKay. Our coach Ron Turnbull who was driving the second van with the rest of our team inside, somehow managed to avoid hitting us and making this an even bigger tragedy. Most of the parents were in cars ahead of us down the road, continuing to New Glasgow unaware of what had just taken place.

Even after 40 years, it's hard to comprehend and accept the loss we all suffered that night.

I'm going to go back a bit further. This 1983-84 Scotsburn Dairies Bantam A team was to be the start of something new for Pictou County. We were a county that was rich with rinks. All the towns had their own rinks and minor hockey systems, including the small village of Thorburn where myself, Greg Greene and Donald Gladwin played. In total, Pictou County boasted 6 rinks and 6 minor hockey associations. And because we were rich with rinks, kids got plenty of ice time, and plenty of ice time meant skills were developed early, and we had a real talent pool throughout the county. It was competitive hockey, town versus town with plenty of rivalries. So, our Bantam A team was born from these minor hockey systems, and we would join to represent Pictou County with talent that was on par with the big cities like Halifax or Dartmouth. We did have an excellent pool of talent, and a great coaching staff. We hoped to be competitive.

I remember I really wanted to play on this team. I was tired of playing against these guys from New Glasgow, Pictou, Stellarton, Trenton and Westville. Each town had some very good players, and I really liked the idea of playing alongside them a lot better than against them. Shawn McKay was tough to play against. Jeff Fox. Chris Barrie was a thorn in my side all the way back to Atom lol. Every player that made this new team would be a welcome teammate! Donald and I had played together in Thorburn for years. He was from Woodburn, so he attended a different school than I did during some of those early years, but we always had hockey together. And we started having success in Peewee together in Thorburn and had won the Bantam B Provincials together in 82-83 playing on a very strong team. I knew Donald was a shoo-in to make the new A team. He was the best goalie of our age that I had ever seen. He was a real competitor. He hated to lose. Hated to let in a bad goal, which admittedly was rare. He approached goaltending in a way that wouldn't be common for another 15 or 20 years. And if you weren't pulling your weight, he wasn't shy about letting you know it, and I loved that about him. He was a masterpiece in the making. Donald, and his lovely parents John Gladwin and Betty Gladwin are held in very special memories I have from those days.

And if Donald was certain to make this new A team, I was most definitely not! There was an abundance of talented forwards to choose from, and I'm not being even slightly modest. Kids like Danny Robertson, a first year Bantam who was big and superb. Robbie Burrows. Chris Barrie. Frank MacFarlane, another first-year player with skills. Cooper Naylor. I'm not going to list them all. Making this team would take some skill and hard work. And as it turned out in my case, being open to change. I was a pretty good skater, and had a bit of hockey sense, so I moved from forward to defence and found a role that I could fill.

Once I was confident that I might be sticking around I got to know these former adversaries of mine a bit better, and as a team we gelled fast.

Shawn McKay was really something. I clearly remember thinking how cool he was, and that I would never come close to being as cool as him. He talked cool. He walked cool. He had some weird confidence in himself that I couldn't imagine possessing. His collar always seemed to be up. He wore work boots before I noticed anybody else wearing them, and he made you think, shit, we ALL should be wearing work boots. He was not a follower and didn't give a crap about what somebody else said was cool. He knew if he did it, THEN it was cool.

John Allen was another first-year player, and gosh, what an athlete. Handsome kid. Friendly. Hard worker on the ice, very skilled, and he could shoot. I remember sitting beside him sometimes in the dressing room, and he had a positive aura about him. Just happy to be on the team I suppose. I remember him as a real good kid that you wanted to be around.

And lovely Lee Marie. As kids playing hockey, the interactions with the parents can sometimes be just as memorable as with your teammates. I remember Lee Marie being very soft spoken and kind, with a lovely smile and so deeply proud and full of love for her son Shawn.

To me, being on this team in '83-84 felt like being a rockstar. Pictou County was hockey crazy, and our games were very well attended. Pictou County really supported us from the get-go. There was a great deal of pride to be a member of this club that first year. Our head coach, Ron Turnbull, was only 26 years old himself, and Ron was a talented coach even then. He wanted us to be disciplined and play with passion. He was tough on you if you shit the bed on a shift, and doled out just enough praise when you were playing well to keep you honest. I was really happy to be playing for him, and to be playing on this amazing team. And we were winning. Not every game, but the majority of them.

Not in our wildest dreams could any of us have imagined what would happen on this day 40 years ago. It was supposed to be just another weekend of hockey. This time in northern New Brunswick. The idea that 4 of us would not make it home from that trip still seems unimaginable. But unfortunately, that was the case. Each of us that survived the accident see ourselves grow a little older in the mirror each day, while John, Donald, Shawn and Lee Marie's faces are frozen in time. My brain doesn't let me remember a lot from the scene of our accident that night. Short moments of time. But I clearly remember Ron, our 26 year old coach who suddenly found himself living a nightmare. I remember him taking my head in his hands and asking me questions. Even though I'd never seen a look on his face like that before, to me he was suddenly in charge again, which greatly eased my stress. The power of a great coach on his players.

There are so many what-if's? We had stopped at McDonald's in Amherst on our way home, just before the accident. What if we hadn't stopped there? What if we stayed there even just a minute longer before getting back on the road? There was likely a brief window in time that would have allowed this accident to happen, and our timeline carried us right into it. 40 year’s worth of what-if's can drive you crazy. The accident happened, and there is simply no explanation for it. Full stop.

My friends are never forgotten. They left behind enormous holes in everyone's hearts. It was a blessing to have known them and shared some time with them. Much love to their families, and love to my surviving brothers from the 1983-84 Pictou County Scotsburn Dairies Bantam A team.