had with Wilkie, but does remember Colleen and Karen MacBean visiting him in hospital. Colleen was a long-time volunteer and education consultant with the Broncos, and also billeted players in the home she shared with her husband Frank, who was on the team’s board of directors. Karen, their daughter, was dating Lackten at the time.
“After that, I don’t know,” Lackten says. “I can’t remember too much.”
When Lackten finally dozed off, Wilkie found that sleep wasn’t going to come easily. As he lay in bed, Wilkie found himself thinking over and over again: Why did I survive?
When the bus had begun its journey, he had been less than four feet from four teammates who now were dead. And now the questions — almost all of them prefaced by the word why — came in a torrent. It was like he had turned on a faucet and now couldn’t turn it off.
“Why was I still here?”
“Why did God do this?”
“Why them?”
As Wilkie searched for sleep, he remembered his dead teammates:
“Brent, who was so young and talented and seemed to have such a bright future. Chris, with his huge smile and heart to match, who was like our big brother, always there to protect and support us. Scotty and Trent. They really were this team’s leaders. They were always upbeat and extremely talented. The two of them had such a great rapport with each other that it was like a comedy act when they got going on each other. Scotty was a joker and was always stirring something up. Trent was a little quieter. But both were quick and their comebacks always made you smile.”
Wilkie had hit it off with Kruger and Kresse, who were talented local boys. Kruger had played the previous season with the Prince Albert Raiders, putting up 106 points, including eighty assists, in seventy-two games. Kresse was also a point machine; he had won the Saskatchewan junior league’s 1984–85 scoring championship, putting up 148 points, including 111 assists, in sixty-four games with the Swift Current franchise.
Wilkie remembers returning to the Broncos after Christmas just days before the accident and sitting down with Kresse and Kruger.
“The three of us had conversations in which we swore that we would drive each other toward our goals of being selected in the 1987 NHL draft,” Wilkie says. “It was a promise we would never get to keep.”
CHAPTER 6
Leesa’s Ride
W hile the Swift Current Broncos played out the first half of their 1986–87 WHL season, Leesa Kraft was attending school in Moose Jaw. Originally from Penticton, British Columbia, she was a student at Aldersgate Bible College, a private school. She didn’t attend Warriors games; she didn’t know anything about the Broncos. In fact, she wasn’t even close to being a hockey fan.
Near the end of December 1986, as most of the Broncos players headed home for Christmas, the twenty-one-year-old Kraft was on a Greyhound bus, en route to Penticton and Christmas with her family.
Prior to the 1800s, Penticton, located in British Columbia’s south Okanagan, primarily was inhabited by the Salish, and the name Penticton means “a place to stay forever.”
“It sure was a great place to grow up,” Leesa Kraft — now Leesa Culp — says, adding that every time she returns for a vacation she wonders why she left. The eldest of three children, she grew up in a bungalow-style house on Toronto Avenue, alongside her mother, Sharon, and father, Len, and with sister Shawna and brother Trevor.
Len was a mechanic, and worked in the motorcycle shop — Kraft Cycle — operated by his father. So, as Leesa says, she grew up “knowing more about motorcycles, snowmobiles, hot rods, and race cars than I did about hockey.”
One of her few experiences with hockey came in the early 1980s when she accompanied Shelley Webber, a high school friend, to a few British Columbia Hockey League games at Memorial Arena. Webber was dating Penticton Knights goaltender Norm Foster, who would go on to a fourteen-year
“After that, I don’t know,” Lackten says. “I can’t remember too much.”
When Lackten finally dozed off, Wilkie found that sleep wasn’t going to come easily. As he lay in bed, Wilkie found himself thinking over and over again: Why did I survive?
When the bus had begun its journey, he had been less than four feet from four teammates who now were dead. And now the questions — almost all of them prefaced by the word why — came in a torrent. It was like he had turned on a faucet and now couldn’t turn it off.
“Why was I still here?”
“Why did God do this?”
“Why them?”
As Wilkie searched for sleep, he remembered his dead teammates:
“Brent, who was so young and talented and seemed to have such a bright future. Chris, with his huge smile and heart to match, who was like our big brother, always there to protect and support us. Scotty and Trent. They really were this team’s leaders. They were always upbeat and extremely talented. The two of them had such a great rapport with each other that it was like a comedy act when they got going on each other. Scotty was a joker and was always stirring something up. Trent was a little quieter. But both were quick and their comebacks always made you smile.”
Wilkie had hit it off with Kruger and Kresse, who were talented local boys. Kruger had played the previous season with the Prince Albert Raiders, putting up 106 points, including eighty assists, in seventy-two games. Kresse was also a point machine; he had won the Saskatchewan junior league’s 1984–85 scoring championship, putting up 148 points, including 111 assists, in sixty-four games with the Swift Current franchise.
Wilkie remembers returning to the Broncos after Christmas just days before the accident and sitting down with Kresse and Kruger.
“The three of us had conversations in which we swore that we would drive each other toward our goals of being selected in the 1987 NHL draft,” Wilkie says. “It was a promise we would never get to keep.”
CHAPTER 6
Leesa’s Ride
W hile the Swift Current Broncos played out the first half of their 1986–87 WHL season, Leesa Kraft was attending school in Moose Jaw. Originally from Penticton, British Columbia, she was a student at Aldersgate Bible College, a private school. She didn’t attend Warriors games; she didn’t know anything about the Broncos. In fact, she wasn’t even close to being a hockey fan.
Near the end of December 1986, as most of the Broncos players headed home for Christmas, the twenty-one-year-old Kraft was on a Greyhound bus, en route to Penticton and Christmas with her family.
Prior to the 1800s, Penticton, located in British Columbia’s south Okanagan, primarily was inhabited by the Salish, and the name Penticton means “a place to stay forever.”
“It sure was a great place to grow up,” Leesa Kraft — now Leesa Culp — says, adding that every time she returns for a vacation she wonders why she left. The eldest of three children, she grew up in a bungalow-style house on Toronto Avenue, alongside her mother, Sharon, and father, Len, and with sister Shawna and brother Trevor.
Len was a mechanic, and worked in the motorcycle shop — Kraft Cycle — operated by his father. So, as Leesa says, she grew up “knowing more about motorcycles, snowmobiles, hot rods, and race cars than I did about hockey.”
One of her few experiences with hockey came in the early 1980s when she accompanied Shelley Webber, a high school friend, to a few British Columbia Hockey League games at Memorial Arena. Webber was dating Penticton Knights goaltender Norm Foster, who would go on to a fourteen-year
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