Santa Clarita youth hockey team wins championship days after deadly Colorado crash
Just days after they were involved in a multi-vehicle crash on I-70 in Colorado, which left one father dead and several players injured, a youth hockey team from Santa Clarita took home the league title on Sunday.
The tournament was hosted at Edge Ice Arena in Littleton, Colorado, taking place over the weekend to determine the champion of the Western Girls Hockey League.
The Santa Clarita Lady Flyers opted to continue playing in the tournament despite the tragedy, and thanks in large part to the support of other teams, emerged triumphant on Sunday afternoon.
Hannah Westbrook, the director of hockey operations for the Colorado 14ers club, which also plays in the WGHL, confirmed that most of the Lady Flyers team was flying out of Colorado a few hours after the game, while some were expected to depart on Monday.
The crash happened early Thursday morning as several families and members of the Santa Clarita Lady Flyers 12-and-under team were traveling to the Western Girls Hockey League tournament. They were about 50 miles from Denver near the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70 in Clear Creek County when the crash occurred, Colorado State Patrol officers said.
Ten people were inside the Sprinter van transporting some of the team and their families when it collided with a Colorado Department of Transportation snowplow at approximately 7:50 a.m. Two other passenger vehicles were also involved in the crash.
The driver of the van, only identified as the father of one of the players, was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said. Eight others were hospitalized in the collision: three adults and five juveniles, one of whom was airlifted to a trauma center in critical condition.
Other families with the Lady Flyers said that three of the players were hospitalized after the crash and that they were all in attendance at the championship game. One of the players' mothers remained hospitalized as of Sunday evening, but everyone else had been released.
