Meet Nathan Oystrick, the new face of the Humboldt Broncos

Nathan Oystrick, a retired pro hockey player who skated in more than 500 games, shook behind the podium at Elgar Petersen Arena as he spoke about taking over for a local hero.

"I did not know Darcy Haugan, but, like so many people in this world today, I wish I had," Oystrick said during a news conference July 3, with Haugan's family sitting feet away.

Oystrick added, "I believe in his commitment to not just developing skilled hockey players but to developing great human beings. And I hope that I can make him proud while doing this job."

Haugan, the general manager and head coach of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League's Humboldt Broncos, died April 6 in the bus crash that also killed 10 players, an assistant coach, an athletic therapist, a broadcaster, a statistician, and their driver.

The Broncos were en route to a playoff game when a semi-trailer truck collided with their bus near Armley, Saskatchewan, in the heart of the prairies.

"I've played in that league for half a year. I played in Humboldt, whether it was hockey or baseball. It definitely hit home," Oystrick, of Regina, told theScore later in July.

"A hockey team on a bus traveling on a road that we've all ridden on thousands and thousands of times in our lives - it definitely struck, hard."

Along with his wife, Lindsay, and their dog, Wiley, Oystrick left Highlands Ranch, Colo. - their home since 2011 - to settle this week in Humboldt, a farming town of fewer than 6,000 whose name now resonates across Canada and beyond.

The GM-coach role Oystrick has assumed is heavy - perhaps the heaviest such role in all of hockey right now. It's a job in sports that, at the same time, is not about sports at all.

The position's multi-layered responsibilities require investment, honesty, and compassion from a certain type of person: somebody who's not only triumphed but failed, too; somebody who can relate - at least on a basic level - to those still healing from an unthinkable event.

"At times, it feels like it happened yesterday," Broncos vice president Randy MacLean said, pausing to collect his thoughts on the wreck that changed the course of so many lives, including his own. "At times, it feels like it happened many years ago."

Broncos president Kevin Garinger and MacLean combed through more than 60 applications for the GM-coach position. MacLean says the club ultimately extended an offer to Oystrick because it was clear the former Atlanta Thrasher "wants to be part of something bigger than hockey."

The hiring process was atypical for the Broncos after losing Haugan, the program's face inside and beyond the rink. The job itself is atypical, given the delicate situation. And Oystrick's story, though typical of a hockey lifer in some ways, is not so typical in others.

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(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)

While growing up in a modest part of Regina, Oystrick and his neighbor Chris Lewgood spent virtually every hour of the day obsessing over the game.

They played hockey before school, practicing shooting in the basement. They daydreamed about hockey in the classroom. They played hockey with mini sticks during recess and lunch. They played hockey after school on the street, the pond, or the rink. They watched hockey on TV at night or played hockey video games.

Oystrick's childhood birthday gifts, presented in a shoebox, rarely changed from year to year: the latest edition of Don Cherry's "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em" series and spending money in the form of two-dollar bills.

When he was in Grade 5, along with his coveted VHS tape, his parents gave him something new: his adoption papers.

Oystrick remembers his parents telling him on several occasions that he'd been adopted. However, this was different. The documents laid out in no uncertain terms that his birth name was Jordan Robert and that he'd been the subject of a closed adoption when he was 2 months old.

The idea lived in the back of his mind from that day forward, but roughly 15 years passed before Oystrick connected with his biological mother. They met in 2009. His mom attended his wedding and is now a big part of his life, though he says he has no desire to contact his biological father.

"I'm happy I have this awesome story because a lot of people don't have a story like this," Oystrick said. "It's been really cool."

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As Oystrick moves back to Saskatchewan after nearly 20 years away, Lewgood is already established there as manager and coach of the Estevan Bruins in the same league.

"There's a little more stress involved with running an SJHL program than playing Blades of Steel on Nintendo," Lewgood said, "but at the end of the day if you love what you're doing and you're passionate about it, it just happens."

Plenty of emotional and practical challenges face Oystrick in the early going. Training camp opens in late August. The Broncos will play two exhibition games in Haugan's hometown of Peace River, Alberta, over Labor Day weekend. Their regular-season home opener Sept. 12 will be broadcast nationally. The team's first road game is two days later. The Broncos still have staff openings for an assistant coach and an athletic therapist/equipment manager.

Meanwhile, thirteen crash survivors continue to recover. The record-breaking nearly $15 million in GoFundMe donations has yet to be distributed. The parents of one of the players killed in the crash recently sued the truck driver, bus company, and bus manufacturer. The truck driver, who wasn't hurt in the collision, has been charged with 16 counts of dangerous driving causing death and 13 counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.

In short, this is a moving story, and there is no handbook.

"It's part of the process of redefining what the new normal looks like while ensuring that we're respecting the legacy," MacLean said of the various post-crash firsts. "Don't lose sight and lose thought of what happened, but at the same time, don't live in it."

Haugan was posthumously honored with the NHL's inaugural Willie O'Ree Community Hero Award in June. Oystrick, Broncos brass, and those close to the action in Humboldt make it abundantly clear that the new coach is replacing Haugan in title only. Not only are the demands of the role different, but Oystrick doesn't have the same type of personality.

"They're completely opposite people on the surface," Lewgood said. "Darcy was very reserved, always well thought-out, and quiet in nature. Nathan is extremely emotional - very passionate and fiery. He speaks his mind at all times. From that standpoint, they're very different. The one thing that is the same in both of them is probably the most important element that you could have in junior hockey. It's their hearts."

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A 2002 seventh-round pick whose EliteProspects.com profile lists him at 5-foot-11 and 214 pounds, Oystrick split his NHL tenure between the Atlanta Thrashers (53 games), Anaheim Ducks (three), and St. Louis Blues (nine). He also patrolled blue lines in the KHL, ECHL, and AHL. Former coaches and teammates describe him as a versatile "throwback" defender who blended skill with physicality. The crowning achievement of his playing career was winning the 2008 Calder Cup as a key member of the Chicago Wolves.

(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)

He landed a player-coach role with the ECHL's Elmira Jackals in 2015-16, and then stepped behind the bench full time as an assistant coach with the Atlanta Gladiators for the '16-17 season.

Despite being four months older than Oystrick, Gladiators captain Derek Nesbitt has always looked up to him. "He's such a gamer," Nesbitt said. "The bigger the situation, the better he is. At all times. He just relishes that. ...

"You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who wouldn't go to bat for Oystie. From knowing him on and off the ice, as a player and a person, he's just an easy guy to follow."

In the 2009-10 AHL season, Oystrick blocked a deflected point shot with his face. His broken jaw had to be wired shut for six weeks, and he lost 11 pounds.

"It actually pushed two of my teeth under my tongue and, in the training room, our team dentist took a scalpel and cut my two teeth out," Oystrick explained.

Then-Wolves goalie Peter Mannino had a front-row seat for the gory sequence.

"He’s a winner and he'll want these guys to win," Mannino said. "But he cares. He's the ultimate teammate and ultimate leader."

Through his relationships in hockey, Oystrick has also experienced loss.

Justin Kinnunen, a teammate and roommate of Oystrick's at Northern Michigan University, was struck and killed by an SUV in August 2016. The former AHLer was 35, the age Oystrick is now.

Seeing Kinnunen's parents at the funeral was particularly heart-wrenching for Oystrick, who broke down multiple times. "Losing a close, close friend was not easy," he said.

Oystrick added: "I think back to my playing career and some of the things that I went through and the ups and downs and adversity that I got through - not only on the ice but off the ice ... I learned a lot from all of those situations. It's nothing of this magnitude, but I thought that in some way I could help."

MacLean said, "He has lived a life. And with that comes experience and resiliency. He can sit there and have conversations and understand where kids are coming from, where parents and billets are coming from."

Last season, Oystrick took on a challenging assignment that turned out to be very relevant to his current role. As head of hockey with the Colorado Academy Mustangs, he was tasked with reviving a dormant program for high schoolers of varying skill levels.

(Photo courtesy: Colorado Academy)

"When I interview people for jobs, I don't have many of them show up with missing teeth," laughed Mike Davis, the academy's head of school. "He came in and within moments of my first meeting with Nathan it was so clear that he was a guy who had a successful career and now he wants to give back."

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Only four names from the Broncos' organizational depth chart last year - two roster players and two affiliated players - are set to return. Oystrick's lineup card will largely be filled through June's SJHL draft and a flood of trades, and every acquisition is bittersweet.

"This is not like the Vegas Golden Knights. We're not an expansion franchise," MacLean said. "This is a situation where, when we hired Nathan, we had zero returning players cleared to play."

Humboldt will be "a team that plays a high-pressure game and who competes every single night, does all the small things well," Oystrick said. "It's a blank slate for everyone. I've never seen them play and they've never had me as a coach.

"Everyone's going into it with the same opportunity and a chance to keep building the organization and moving forward. I want to win. I'd love to win a championship in these three years. But we're starting off in rebuild mode."

Colorado Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar was raised in Humboldt and coached Oystrick in the AHL. He knows what he'd do if he were headed home to run the Broncos.

"The very first thing and the most important thing is that you have to go in there with the players' best interests as your No. 1 (priority)," Bednar said. "You have to protect them, shield them, help them focus on hockey and life and schooling, and try to move forward in a respectful way. …

"I think he can really help those kids and that organization get back on its feet."

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Hockey lifers do plenty of moving. The 16-hour drive almost straight north for a new job was the kind of thing Oystrick and his wife are used to.

What unfolds from here is much less predictable.

"I don't know if you can totally prepare for September 12th," Oystrick said. "I can pretend to know what's going to happen, but until that day comes and it's the first game and the building's full, I just … have absolutely no idea."

Lewgood suggests his childhood friend will figure out how to handle it, saying, "He's one of these guys who doesn't think about what he's doing. It just comes to him naturally. He leads by example."

Oystrick also leads by the example of the person who preceded him. At his news conference, he promised to leave up the Broncos' core covenant that Haugan put on the wall outside the team's dressing room. It reads, in part: "Always give more than you take."