Free B00ADOAFYO EBOK by Leesa Culp, Gregg Drinnan, Bob Wilkie Page A

Lloydminster Lancers in 1982–83.
    “When it really hit me that this was serious was when we saw Scott and Trevor’s mom come into the hospital,” Feher says. “She was wearing pins and buttons — the typical hockey mom and fan. I was with a group of players when a doctor approached Mrs. Kruger, who was about ten metres away from us. As the doctor [spoke with her], she broke down, and all of us sat in the chairs and stared.”
    The doctor and Broncos assistant coach Lorne Frey, who was Louise Kruger’s brother, informed her and her husband, Walt, that their son, Scott, had been killed in the crash. Having witnessed that, Feher began to realize how serious the accident in which he had just been involved actually was. At the same time, he began to understand that it soon would be major news. Perhaps it was also the shock wearing off, but it dawned on him that he should call his parents and let them know that he was okay. He didn’t want them to hear about it and wonder about his status.
    “I phoned my parents in Prince Albert to let them know that there was a serious bus accident, that there were lives lost, but I was okay,” he remembers. “I also called the Nipawin Hawks to let them know as well.”
    Feher was then checked over by a doctor, who found him to have “a badly bruised [right] kneecap.” Feher was given a pair of crutches to help him keep the weight off the injured knee.
    “As I began to leave the hospital,” he says, “we were given instructions to meet at the rink the next day.” But before he could even think about the following day, Feher had to find a place to spend the night. After what he had been through, going back to a hotel didn’t particularly appeal to him. As things turned out, he didn’t have to spend another night in the hotel.
    “Tim Tisdale and his parents offered me a place to stay for the night,” Feher says. “I don’t think I ever thanked them for that.”
    Defenceman Jason Proulx also stayed with Feher in the warmth of the Tisdale home that night. Proulx, who had been acquired with Peter Soberlak from the Kamloops Blazers early in the season, ended up staying with the Tisdales for the duration of the season.
    By the time the Tisdales, Feher, and Proulx got settled, the media was onto the story and television news crews had footage for their newscasts. It was while Feher was at the Tisdales’ home that he saw the first pictures.
    “We saw the news and the footage of the bus and couldn’t believe what had just happened,” Feher says. He found it almost incomprehensible that he had been involved in what he was seeing on television. Despite the horrors he had just experienced, he adds, “I remember, surprisingly, that I had a pretty good night’s sleep that night.”
    When he awoke the morning of December 31, all kinds of questions were rushing through Feher’s mind. After all, he had joined the Broncos just a couple of days earlier. Heck, he hadn’t even gotten into a game with them.
    “What is going to happen now?” he remembers wondering. “Are we going to play again? How long will it be?”
    Before long, Feher decided that no matter what the immediate future held for Swift Current, he wouldn’t be part of it. He decided that he was going back to Nipawin.
    “I never really knew anyone on that bus, besides Trent,” he explains, “so I decided that since I really wasn’t part of the team, I was going to leave. I went to the rink to talk to Graham James and he was very supportive. I noticed he had a lot of cuts on his face.
    “Since I wasn’t part of the team, I didn’t want to take part in all the aftermath that was to follow. I said I was going back to Nipawin to finish my junior hockey career. Having said all that, Graham never tried to keep me. He said whatever I wanted to do, I could do. I picked up my equipment and got into my car.” Had Feher stayed with the Broncos, he would have been one of three goaltenders, along with Trevor Kruger and Pat