STAVELY, Alberta — Three Southern Alberta Mustangs junior hockey gamers have been killed Monday morning in a automobile crash whereas heading to apply.
RCMP mentioned it responded to the crash at an intersection with Freeway 2 in Stavely — about an hour’s drive south of Calgary. JJ Wright and Cameron Casorso, each 18 and from Kamloops, British Columbia, and 17-year-old Caden Wonderful of Birmingham, Alabama, have been killed.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, in a social media submit, supplied condolences to the gamers’ households and teammates.
“The entire Alberta hockey household is standing with you in sorrow and in prayer,” Smith mentioned. “Within the days forward, I do know Albertans will wrap these households and this workforce in love and help as they navigate a ache nobody ought to ever must bear.”
RCMP mentioned the crash concerned a northbound semi truck pulling gravel and a small passenger automobile going east. The motive force of the semi, a 40-year-old man from Stavely, sustained minor accidents.
The U.S. Premier Hockey League workforce mentioned on Fb that it’s working carefully with authorities and is asking for privateness for the gamers’ households.
“There are not any phrases that may adequately specific the depth of our grief,” the workforce mentioned. “These younger males have been greater than hockey gamers — they have been teammates, sons, brothers, buddies, and deeply beloved members of our Mustangs household and the communities we name house. We’re a household, and immediately our household is hurting.”
On the city’s enviornment, three white and pink jerseys with the final names of the gamers have been draped over a desk, together with three upright hockey sticks.
The Kamloops Minor Hockey Affiliation mentioned in an announcement that Casorso and Wright grew up within the B.C. group. Casorso performed from 2012 to 2025 and Wright from 2011 to 2025.
“Though their journeys started right here in Kamloops, they discovered a second hockey household and a brand new bond with the Southern Alberta Mustangs,” the assertion mentioned. “These three younger males have been teammates and buddies to many. We’re grieving collectively, as one hockey household ceaselessly modified by the lack of these younger males.”
The Calgary Flames of the Nationwide Hockey League additionally supplied help on social media: “Our ideas and prayers are with everybody who knew them,” the workforce mentioned.
Information of the crash evoked recollections of one other lethal crash involving a junior hockey workforce.
In April 2018, 16 individuals have been killed and 13 injured when a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League crashed. The workforce had been on its technique to a playoff sport when a semi truck went by way of a cease signal and into the trail of the bus at a rural intersection close to Tisdale, Saskatchewan.
The mayor of Humboldt expressed condolences to the Alberta workforce on Fb.
“We stand together with your neighborhood as you mourn this tragic loss, and our ideas are with all these affected,” Mayor Rob Muench mentioned.
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