Columbus Semi-Pro Hockey Team Avoids Serious Injury After Bus Crash and Rollover

Though a shocking scene to witness for anybody, an accident like this is extra chilling for anyone who has taken the bus at any level of sport.

The Columbus Cottonmouths team of the Southern Professional Hockey League were travelling along I-74 just minutes from arriving in Peoria, Illinois, for a two-game weekend set with the Peoria Rivermen when their bus lost control on the northbound I-155 ramp while trying to take a corner and rolled over into a roadside field.

All 24 members of the Cottonmouths hockey team were transported to area hospitals to be examined and treated for various injuries, and most escaped the rolled-over bus on their own without assistance.

Two members of the team, though, were trapped and eventually removed through holes cut in the roof of the bus and sent to local hospitals, according to the Peoria Journal Star. The bus driver reportedly suffered injuries which required surgery. Columbus starting goaltender Brandon Jaeger suffered an apparent leg injury, while the league said a non-team member on the bus suffered a broken collarbone. All other players and staff on the bus were examined at the hospital and released, according to the report.

All released from hospital except Brandon Jaeger and the bus driver. Neither suffer from life-threatening injuries — Cottonmouths Hockey (@Cottonmouths)January 20, 2017

The league has cancelled the Friday game for obvious reasons, but in true hockey fashion they are planning (at this point) to go ahead with Saturday's game as scheduled, despite the surely emotionally traumatizing accident still being so fresh.

"Coach Bechard says he is confident he can bring in some players, and we'll play Saturday, but it's been such a traumatic day for them, it just did not seem feasible to play the Friday game," said SPHL president Jim Combs late Thursday.

Traveling long distances across often dangerous stretches of highway in the winter time is one of the not-often-discussed risks of playing minor professional and junior hockey.

"You feel like you could be in an accident just about every time you go on one of these trips. In the back of your mind, you know it could happen. But it's like flying. Extremely rare for something like this to happen. I've been riding on team buses all over Canada, the US, Europe, since I was 14 and I've never had this happen," said Peoria Rivermen head coach Jean-Guy Trudel.

Fatal bus accidents involving sports teams are, indeed, very rare. Thankfully there were no fatalities or serious injuries this time around, but teams haven't always gotten off that lucky.

In December 1986, a bus carrying the WHL's Swift Current Broncos (a team that boasted Hall of Famer Joe Sakic) hit black ice and harsh winds coming out of a turn, and flew off the Trans-Canada highway in Saskatchewan, leaving four young hockey players dead. In 2008, a van carrying a high-school basketball team from Bathurst, New Brunswick, slid in bad weather into a transport trailer, killing seven players and the coach's wife.

Once a heavy bus loses control and starts spinning on one of these desolate highways, it's basically a coin flip determining life and death at that point. Luckily for everyone, the Cottonmouths got out on the right side of this one.