Key Highlights
- The team says one mother of a player is still in the hospital in Colorado. A father was killed and several members of a Santa Clarita girls hockey team were injured when a snowplow hit their van in Colorado. The Santa Clarita Lady Flyers returned to their home rink on Monday night to be celebrated as champions.
- A memorial outside of the rink celebrates their big accomplishment, but also recognizes the pain of several families who were involved in the deadly crash. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe girls decided they were going to continue on with the tournament and play for their peers who were involved in the crash.
- They went on to win six games and walked away as Western Girls Hockey Champions. The team captain said it was about a two and a half hour conversation between the teammates, ages 10 to 13 years old, about whether or not they wanted to proceed."We all got around in a circle and we all kind of just talked about if we should play or not, and our decision was that we should play, not for ourselves, but for Manny, who was the father, and for our girls," said Sophia Boyle, the team captain. The head coach said it was a very special moment when the player whose dad passed away returned to the team. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement"We had a short bench, and on the fourth game, the young girl whose father who passed away actually showed up on the bench, game four, scored about 40 seconds into the game.
- As the girls were cheering, she was walking onto my bench with a helmet on.
- And all the girls hopped over, were giving her hugs because that was the first time we saw her.