professional career that included thirteen NHL games. (During his career, he would be teammates at one time or another with five of the 1986–87 Broncos: Tracy Egeland, Ian Herbers, Clarke Polglase, Peter Soberlak, and Bob Wilkie.)
During the eighteen-hour bus ride home for Christmas in 1986, Leesa had a lot of time to think about changes she was about to make in her life. She had met Bill Culp, a musician, and was planning a move to the Toronto area in order to be with him. As the bus sped west, she was trying to figure out just how she was going to break this news to her folks.
“I dreaded telling my family of my plans to move even farther away from home,” she remembers. “My family was quite happy knowing I was living in a fairly sheltered environment surrounded by solid Christian influences on the Aldersgate campus. I wasn’t sure how my parents would react to this move.”
As she rationalized it at the time, “The idea of living in a big city excited me. It was a thrill to think I would be making a move to a part of the country about which I knew very little. I had gone from a sheltered home environment to a sheltered college environment, and I knew this move to Ontario would allow me to experience a lifestyle very unlike the one I’d had.” But she knew there would be parental resistance.
“For this very reason, and the fact they had never met Bill, I knew my parents would be extremely reluctant to support this move,” she says. “Knowing Bill was in a band put visions of a long-haired, tattooed, drug-smoking musician in my parents’ heads. No amount of convincing otherwise was going to change their minds.”
(In truth, Bill Culp had short hair, didn’t have any tattoos, and didn’t do drugs. From Dunnville, Ontario, he is the youngest of four children. His father, Herb, was the vice-president of the Dunnville Minor Sports Association and even coached minor hockey for a number of years. Bill’s older brother Jamie played for Mount Royal College in Calgary and for the Dunnville Terriers, a junior C hockey team. In recent years, you may have seen Bill Culp on tour in “The Sun Records Show,” a tribute that includes the music of Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis.)
Shawna, Leesa’s sister, had recently moved to Barrie, Ontario, in order to be closer to her future in-laws. So Leesa sold her parents on the move by telling them she would be closer to Shawna.
“I was sure my parents would find comfort in knowing I wouldn’t be too many miles away from her if things didn’t work out,” Leesa says.
After Christmas, the plan was for Leesa to ride a bus back to Moose Jaw, where she would begin preparations for a January 20 flight from Regina to Toronto. However, in an effort to save some money, Leesa’s parents suggested that she cash in her bus ticket and catch a ride with Mel Shepherd, a neighbour who drove a big rig back and forth between Penticton and Calgary. He would drop her off at the Calgary bus terminal and she would then take a Greyhound to Moose Jaw.
Never having been in a big rig, Leesa remembers it as “the biggest truck I had ever been in.” She also remembers chatting with Mel and listening to 1980s pop songs like Glass Tiger’s “Don’t Forget Me When I’m Gone” as the trip began.
“Other than having to stop once to chain up before heading up a steep hill,” she says, “it was a pretty uneventful drive.”
That began to change as they approached Calgary. With the weather about to change for the worse, Mel told Leesa that he really wanted to unload his trailer, reload immediately, and head right back to Penticton. This meant he wouldn’t be able to get her to the downtown bus terminal. Instead, he said, he knew a guy who was driving all the way to Montreal, and suggested they could hook up with him at the next truck stop. Essentially, Leesa would hitch a ride to Moose Jaw with another trucker, one she had never met.
She was apprehensive but,
During the eighteen-hour bus ride home for Christmas in 1986, Leesa had a lot of time to think about changes she was about to make in her life. She had met Bill Culp, a musician, and was planning a move to the Toronto area in order to be with him. As the bus sped west, she was trying to figure out just how she was going to break this news to her folks.
“I dreaded telling my family of my plans to move even farther away from home,” she remembers. “My family was quite happy knowing I was living in a fairly sheltered environment surrounded by solid Christian influences on the Aldersgate campus. I wasn’t sure how my parents would react to this move.”
As she rationalized it at the time, “The idea of living in a big city excited me. It was a thrill to think I would be making a move to a part of the country about which I knew very little. I had gone from a sheltered home environment to a sheltered college environment, and I knew this move to Ontario would allow me to experience a lifestyle very unlike the one I’d had.” But she knew there would be parental resistance.
“For this very reason, and the fact they had never met Bill, I knew my parents would be extremely reluctant to support this move,” she says. “Knowing Bill was in a band put visions of a long-haired, tattooed, drug-smoking musician in my parents’ heads. No amount of convincing otherwise was going to change their minds.”
(In truth, Bill Culp had short hair, didn’t have any tattoos, and didn’t do drugs. From Dunnville, Ontario, he is the youngest of four children. His father, Herb, was the vice-president of the Dunnville Minor Sports Association and even coached minor hockey for a number of years. Bill’s older brother Jamie played for Mount Royal College in Calgary and for the Dunnville Terriers, a junior C hockey team. In recent years, you may have seen Bill Culp on tour in “The Sun Records Show,” a tribute that includes the music of Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis.)
Shawna, Leesa’s sister, had recently moved to Barrie, Ontario, in order to be closer to her future in-laws. So Leesa sold her parents on the move by telling them she would be closer to Shawna.
“I was sure my parents would find comfort in knowing I wouldn’t be too many miles away from her if things didn’t work out,” Leesa says.
After Christmas, the plan was for Leesa to ride a bus back to Moose Jaw, where she would begin preparations for a January 20 flight from Regina to Toronto. However, in an effort to save some money, Leesa’s parents suggested that she cash in her bus ticket and catch a ride with Mel Shepherd, a neighbour who drove a big rig back and forth between Penticton and Calgary. He would drop her off at the Calgary bus terminal and she would then take a Greyhound to Moose Jaw.
Never having been in a big rig, Leesa remembers it as “the biggest truck I had ever been in.” She also remembers chatting with Mel and listening to 1980s pop songs like Glass Tiger’s “Don’t Forget Me When I’m Gone” as the trip began.
“Other than having to stop once to chain up before heading up a steep hill,” she says, “it was a pretty uneventful drive.”
That began to change as they approached Calgary. With the weather about to change for the worse, Mel told Leesa that he really wanted to unload his trailer, reload immediately, and head right back to Penticton. This meant he wouldn’t be able to get her to the downtown bus terminal. Instead, he said, he knew a guy who was driving all the way to Montreal, and suggested they could hook up with him at the next truck stop. Essentially, Leesa would hitch a ride to Moose Jaw with another trucker, one she had never met.
She was apprehensive but,
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