SaskatoonA documentary about the fatal Swift Current Broncos bus crash in 1986 will be screened in Swift Current on Monday. A former player featured in the doc expects it will help some people heal.Dec. 30, 1986, crash killed 4 junior hockey playersKelly Provost · CBC News · Posted: Oct 13, 2025 7:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours agoThe jersey numbers worn by the four players killed in the Dec. 30, 1986, Swift Current Broncos bus crash were retired after the crash. (CBC News)A member of the 1986-87 Swift Current Broncos thinks a documentary about the team is going to “start lots of conversations” and “heal some people.”The Dec. 30, 1986, crash of the team’s bus four kilometres east of Swift Current killed four of Bob Wilkie’s teammates — Trent Kresse, Scott Kruger, Chris Mantyka and Brent Ruff.The documentary Sideways focuses on the personal story of Wilkie, who went on to play with the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings and Philadelphia Flyers in the early 1990s, and how the tragedy changed the team and the community.Wilkie now runs mental wellness programs for young athletes.”At that time, there was just a lot of ignorance around these sorts of things. Today, we’re much better,” Wilkie said in an interview with the host of CBC’s The Morning Edition, Adam Hunter.”It affected us all in so many different ways that it ruined relationships. It blurred futures. It took a lot of people into a dark place that some never recovered, unfortunately, because we didn’t know how to do that.”A granite memorial in the shape of a clover was unveiled on Dec. 30, 2016, three decades after a bus crashed in Saskatchewan, killing four Swift Current Broncos players. (Simon Roberge/SRC)Wilkie, who was 17 at the time of the crash, said it affected everyone around him.”It was my family, it was my billets, it was all my friends, everybody I knew. It has a very big ripple effect,” he said.”When someone can get serious about healing and overcoming, it has a significant impact on all those people, too.”The Broncos were coached by now-disgraced hockey coach and convicted sex offender Graham James.James spent several years in prison for sexually assaulting young players he coached in the 1980s and 1990s. Retired NHLers Theo Fleury and Sheldon Kennedy were among his victims.The documentary goes into how James said in the aftermath of the crash that the team didn’t need counselling.LISTEN | Former Broncos player recalls aftermath of crash:The Morning Edition – Sask9:52Sideways: Documentary revisits 1986 Swift Current Broncos bus crashNearly 40 years after the 1986 Swift Current Broncos bus crash, One survivor’s journey from the crash to mental health advocate and NHL hockey player is featured in a documentary.The Broncos won a national championship, the Memorial Cup, two seasons later.Wilkie said everyone involved in the film want the people of Swift Current to realize how much was accomplished.”There’s still so much … it was kind of shame, and maybe some guilt, around what happened, especially with Graham James being a part of it,” Wilkie said.”But it’s time that we celebrate the accomplishments that we have and what we were able to do. That small town of Swift Current — it saved a lot of us and it showed a lot of us how to be successful afterwards.”The documentary’s producer, Shayne Putzlocher, said he thought the subject would be an amazing movie as far back as 2012. But after every door was “slammed on our face,” he asked Wilkie to be part of a documentary that would tell the story from his perspective.”So we can at least bring awareness that this story exists,” Putzlocher said. “Because there’s still a lot of people out there that don’t even know that this story exists.”WATCH | The trailer for the documentary Sideways:Putzlocher said it’s been pretty emotional to put the story to film.”That’s just one of those stories that’s just like, ‘How can you not tell that?’ Because it rips your heart out,” he said.”But by the end of it, you want to jump out of your seat and cheer just because you’re so proud of it. The emotional rollercoaster that you go through in this film is pretty significant.”Sideways will be shown at the InnovationPlex in Swift Current on Monday. Doors open at 12:30 p.m. CST, with a program scheduled to start at 2 p.m. and the screening at 2:20 p.m.Families of the four players who died in the crash, and Swift Current Broncos alumni, will also be there.Organizers are hoping for a strong turnout from players and families in Swift Current Minor Hockey, with the idea of “sparking the honest conversations about resilience and mental health for hockey players and parents.”ABOUT THE AUTHORKelly Provost is a newsreader and reporter with CBC News in Saskatoon. He covers sports, northern and land-based topics among general news. He has also worked as a news director in northern Saskatchewan, covering Indigenous issues for over 20 years. Email him at kelly.provost@cbc.ca.Follow Kelly Provost on TwitterWith files from CBC’s The Morning Edition
Doc about Swift Current Broncos bus crash expected to spark ‘honest conversations’
