The keynote speaker for the Jersey Gala was united in grief with the rest of Canada over the tragic loss of 16 lives when the Humboldt Broncos team bus collided with a semi-trailer unit April 6.
"Like most Canadians, I was deeply affected with what happened to that team," said Peter Mansbridge, who was the chief correspondent of CBC News and anchor of The National, CBC’s flagship nightly newscast, before stepping down July 1, 2017, after 30 years.
"When Nolan Crouse (chair of the St. Albert Humboldt Remembrance Committee) called and told me he was thinking of getting this event organized because of the obvious connection with St. Albert with four of the kids on that team, he asked me if I would be willing to come. I said, ‘Absolutely, you just tell me when and we will make it happen.' "
The goal of the Jersey Gala Friday night at the Enjoy Centre is to raise in excess of $500,000 for a scholarship fund that will produce four annual and equal scholarships to honour the memories of Logan Hunter (Youth Leadership), Jaxon Joseph (For the Love of the Game), Conner Lukan (Tighten Your Skates) and Stephen Wack (Confidence to Follow Your Heart).
Not counting money from the gala, the committee has so far raised $129,506.
The committee has also contributed $7,500 for memorial park benches and $24,000 for a memorial stick sculpture inside Akinsdale Arena.
The sold-out Jersey Gala – 650 tickets at $200 apiece – symbolizes how a community rallied around the Humboldt Strong initiative to provide a lasting legacy for those lives lost in the April 6 bus crash.
"I live in a small community – smaller than St. Albert – but like every community of varying sizes in Canada, we’re connected in some way to hockey, whether it’s boys’ hockey or girls’ hockey, and we are very much so in Stratford, Ontario, where I live," Mansbridge said.
"You imagined yourself in the similar situation and how you would be reaching out for friends everywhere, and that’s basically what happened here."
The Gazette talked to Mansbridge prior to the Jersey Gala, which also features Ron MacLean as the emcee and Paul Coffey and St. Albert’s Meaghan Mikkelson as honorary chairs. The distinguished journalist answered the following questions:
Describe how the April 6 tragedy united Canadians in support of the Humboldt Broncos.
“Whether it was hockey or not, it brought everybody together,” Mansbridge said. “With the hockey side, it’s clear the impact it had because so many Canadians – so many mothers and fathers – watch their sons and daughters playing hockey and those who are on travel teams, the buses are part of that story. So obviously from coast to coast there was a connection, but it’s deeper than that. It’s about our youth. It’s about young people. It’s about their hopes and dreams and all these kids had hopes and dreams.
“I think people were so deeply affect by that, whether they were hockey fans or not. It was simply about young people whose lives were suddenly taken away from them and whose families were obviously deeply impacted like all of us would have been.
“Canadians have a habit of rallying around communities that suffer. It doesn’t have to be as awful as this. It could be a forest fire, it could be an ice storm, it could be any number of things, so we have that tradition and it’s a wonderful quality to have and here it showed itself across the country and in so many different ways but it struck that chord about young people.”
What jersey will you wear?
“I will wear a Broncos’ jersey that night,” Mansbridge said. “I’m a Leafs’ fan, I’m a Jets fan, so normally I would probably wear one of those, but to me on that night I will be proud to wear a Broncos’ jersey.”
What’s your sports background?
“I was born in (London), England, so when I arrived in Canada, I was like seven years old and I didn’t know anything about hockey. But I quickly became a hockey fan and then a hockey player. I played hockey at a very minor level, both through my school years and then a little bit when I was in the Navy and then sort of beer league hockey, but beyond that nothing,” Mansbridge said.
“I coached in Stratford when my son was going through different levels of hockey and I enjoyed that. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I was pretty good at opening the door – not sure what else I taught them, but it was great fun.
“Hockey is such an important part of our community. We’ve got a junior B team in Stratford and there is always a home game on Friday nights, some other nights as well, but it’s always on a Friday night so that is always part of the community’s ritual, and the town supports that team whether they’re playing well or not playing well.
“Chris Pronger played there. There were more than a few guys who wound up in the NHL that played there.”
How is retirement going after such a long broadcasting career?
“I’ve stepped down from The National and I retired from the CBC, but I also signed a contract with the CBC to be doing two major one-hour documentaries a year, which takes a lot of time. The current one will air in late November and it involved travel around the world. It’s a documentary on the state of human rights in the world, and it’s pretty good,” said Mansbridge, who has conducted an estimated 15,000 interviews, including Canadian and global leaders, and has covered every federal election since 1972 and anchored all 10 since 1984 during an award-winning career with the CBC.
“My time is considerably different than it was when I was doing the nightly show, but I still have a hand in television and journalism. I’m also sitting on a number of boards and I give a lot of speeches. I will be in St. Albert on Friday and then I fly on Saturday to Vancouver because I have two speeches there, one on the weekend and one on Monday. I‘m doing five or six speeches a month from all parts of the country as well, so that is great.
“I’m still travelling lots, meeting a lot of Canadians, hearing their concerns about everything, from the state of the country to the state of broadcasting, so it’s all very good.”
Have you been to St. Albert before?
“I have. It’s been a while. It would have been on an election campaign. It would have been in the ’80s, either '84 or '88, I can’t remember which one,” Mansbridge said. “I’m in Alberta a lot. My parents lived there. My dad (Stanley) worked for the Lougheed government, he was a deputy minister (of Social Services and Community Health) there, so I’m in and out of Edmonton especially quite often. I’ve probably been there half a dozen times already this year for various speeches I’ve given.”
