A new Netflix series is in production. It’s set in a working-class town where hockey is everything, until a bus crash kills players and their coach.
That storyline is all too familiar for many in Saskatchewan.
The series plot hit like a puck to the chest for Scott Thomas. He is living the reality of losing his 18-year-old son Evan, who was a rookie right winger for the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team.
Evan was one of the 16 people who died after the team’s bus collided with a semi that had blown through a stop sign in rural Saskatchewan on April 6, 2018. Thirteen others travelling on the bus were injured.
Netflix has not publicly said the series is inspired by the Humboldt Broncos, but even without a trailer, a release date or a name publicly available, the similarity of the plot alone is enough to raise questions.
“I don’t know the whole story, but just from what I can see online, they’re trying to make some triumph out of tragedy, which for me … I’ll never be able to find triumph in this tragedy,” Thomas said in an interview.
He said it’s not something he could watch — a fictional story built around a painful reality for his family.
“It’s just a tragedy that keeps happening every day for me and for our family,” he said.
He isn’t naive enough to believe nobody would try to make money off a story about something that made headlines around the world, but from what is available about the show so far, the ending is nowhere close to the truth, he said.
‘A gut punch’: Father of Humboldt Bronco who died in bus crash reacts to Netflix series
The series takes place in South Dorothy, Minnesota, where the high school hockey team has produced championship banners and future NHL stars for decades, until a bus crash claims several players and the coach.
Then comes the plot twist: Harper, the coach’s widow, played by Michelle Monaghan, is asked to coach a “new team of battered and broken young men,” Netflix promotional material says.
“It looks to me like this is going to be some rising from the phoenix, rising from the ashes story. And that’s just not my reality. This is a tragedy that I live every day,” Thomas said.
“I mourn the loss of my son every day.”
Thomas doesn’t feel anyone has a duty to consult with him, but if the idea is inspired or taken from what happened to the Broncos, he would’ve liked to have been made aware that something like this was in the works.
“If it was a documentary and told the real facts of what happened that day and where everybody is now and the battles we’re all still fighting, that’s one thing,” he said.
“But to fictionalize it to have a completely inaccurate ending, I don’t see how that helps our story at all, or our cause to make this world a better place in the name of our loved ones.”
The story is already getting interest online, with some commenters on social media calling it “gross,” “profiteering,” and a “read the room” moment, while others argue that fiction borrows from real-life tragedies all the time, and a bus crash plot isn’t unique to Humboldt.
CBC has reached out to Netflix for comment, but did not hear back by the time of publication.
Craig Silliphant, a cultural commentator in Saskatchewan, said the reaction makes sense because the story hits too close to home.
“Just a horrible tragedy like that, the fact that it’s literally tied into hockey players. [Netflix] didn’t change the sport; I mean, I think those two factors right there are a fairly major indication,” he said, explaining why he thinks the story resembles what happened to the Humboldt team.
The series is tied to Shawn Levy’s 21 Laps production company. Nick Naveda is listed as creator and Bridget Bedard as executive producer. The production company did not respond to CBC’s request for comment.
Levy is a Canadian filmmaker originally from Montreal. Silliphant said that brings it even closer to home for Canadians watching closely.
Silliphant wonders: will it be creative or crass? Tribute or trauma?
He said there are ways to tell stories about traumatic events with care: consultation, respect, and an honest relationship with the pain at the centre of the story. There are also ways to make tragedy more Hollywood — a nice arc, and a feel-good happy ending for the audience.
For now, he said people outside the production don’t know which version Netflix is making.
