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STAVELY — Tributes across Canada and the hockey community have embraced a small Alberta town, where three junior hockey players died in a car crash trying to cross a divided highway to get to morning practice.
Although most of the Southern Alberta Mustangs are not from Stavely, they fit right in, said resident Dale Ohler.
He and others would watch out their front windows as players went by on their routine runs, a coach’s young daughter sometimes trailing behind them on her bicycle.
Players also clean yards, volunteer with local clubs and join in on exercises at the seniors centre.
“(It’s) hitting everybody so hard,” Ohler said Tuesday outside the Stavely Arena, where three white jerseys and hockey sticks were set up in a memorial.
“I was speechless for a while.”
The crash happened Monday morning at a highway entrance to Stavely, just over an hour’s drive south of Calgary.
RCMP said the three players were in a car travelling east across the highway when it collided with a northbound semi-truck hauling two trailers of gravel.
The Mustangs said the players — JJ Wright and Cameron Casorso, both 18, were from Kamloops, B.C., and Caden Fine, 17, was from Alabama — had been on their way to practice.
The truck driver, who is from Stavely, received minor injures.
The Mustangs play in the U.S. Premier Hockey League’s Premier Division. While the league is mainly based south of the border, an Alberta-based conference was formed ahead of this season after the Mustangs and three other teams joined.
“These young men were not just hockey players, but an important part of the fabric of our community, contributing through their character, their friendships, and the promise they carried into the future,” the town said in a statement.
Family members, friends, former teammates and coaches described the three as exceptional young men who lived for the sport.
In Ottawa, the House of Commons observed a moment of silence in memory of the players, and Prime Minister Mark Carney said his heart goes out to their families.
National Hockey League superstar Connor McDavid called the deaths tragic.
“Something that touched close to home,” the Edmonton Oilers captain said ahead of a home game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“Obviously in our sport, we do spend a lot of time travelling place to place, whether that’s for games on buses or in vehicles to practices. And it’s very unfortunate that happened to three young men,” added Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch.
The players were recognized in a brief ceremony before the Oilers hosted the Maple Leafs on Tuesday.
Pictures of the three young men were shown on the big screen and projected onto the ice at Rogers Place as public address announcer Al Stafford spoke about how they’re being mourned by the hockey community.
The crowd of more than 18,000 stood for a moment of silence and the photos on the big screen faded to black and white before the screen went completely black.
For many, the crash evoked memories of the deadly Humboldt Broncos collision near Tisdale, Sask., in April 2018.
A semi truck barrelled through a stop sign and into the path of a bus carrying the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League team to a playoff game. Sixteen people were killed and 13 were injured.
The highway crossing at Stavely is controlled by stop signs with flashing lights for those heading west and east. There’s a median in between the divided lanes but with no signs.
Tire tracks and a downed light pole could be seen in a field near the intersection Tuesday.
Like many at-grade junctures on the Prairies, vehicles on the main highway have the right of way to those approaching off a smaller road.
A crash at a similar intersection near Carberry, Man., killed 17 people, most of them seniors, headed to a casino in 2023. Their bus crossed into the path of a semi-trailer heading down a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway.
The Manitoba government has announced plans to replace the intersection with an overpass that area residents had long demanded.
Cpl. Gina Slaney said Mounties were continuing to investigate the Stavely crash and that reconstructionists had attended the scene.
“It takes some time for their reports to come back. So, at this time, we’re not 100 per cent sure of exactly what happened,” she said.
A spokesperson for Alberta’s Transportation Ministry said in a statement the province would do its own review of the crash and the intersection.
Slaney said there was another fatal crash at the intersection in September. It also involved a vehicle trying to cross the main highway, she said.
Ohler called the intersection “terrible.”
“The Stavely people do a special turn there because of how scary it is going across that road,” he said. “You have to watch and turn a certain way so you can see the highway better.”
The mayor of Nanton, a nearby town where many players live with billet families, told reporters such highway crossings are a fact of life for rural towns.
“We drive these roads and cross these intersections every day. We know the risks,” said Jen Handley, wearing a Mustang jerseys while standing with the team’s owner and head coach outside the Stavely rink.
Her family is also a Mustang billet.
“We pray they’re safe,” she said “And yet we always live with the ‘what if.’ Yesterday, that ‘what if’ has taken three young lives.”
She said a benefit hockey game was being organized for Sunday to bring players and the community together in support of the team.
“These young men were loved here. They will be remembered here,” Handley said.
Rochelle Graham of Stavely, a trained minister, was also at the arena to offer help to those seeking comfort.
“People aren’t sure what would happen when they walk in … so if they needed just someone to listen, then I was here for them.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 3, 2026.
— With files from Steve Lambert in Winnipeg, and Jack Farrell, Fakiha Baig and Gemma Karstens-Smith in Edmonton
Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press
