St. Ignatius varsity hockey team plays first game since bus crash involving JV team
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The St. Ignatius College Prep varsity hockey team played Thursday night for the first time since the junior varsity team was in a serious crash in Indiana over the weekend.
The St. Ignatius Wolfpack varsity team took on the Mount Carmel Caravan Thursday night at the Morgan Park Sports Center, 11505 S. Western Ave.
The team says they are motivated to play hard for their junior varsity teammates, whose season has been suspended. Three students were seriously hurt, and two are still in the hospital at last check.
The Ignatius varsity team will honor the injured players this Saturday at their home varsity game.
We caught up with the head coach of the St. Ignatius team, who said he is looking forward to getting back to normal.
"I think there's a lot of emotion going into the game. Of course, the boys are first and foremost in their minds," said St. Ignatius Varsity Hockey Head Coach Spencer Montgomery. But they're excited to get back to a little sense of normalcy and hockey."
This past Saturday, a semi-truck struck the Wolfpack hockey players' bus in Warsaw, Indiana.
The team was en route to a hotel from dinner in Warsaw after a tournament in Culver. Warsaw is about 50 miles south of South Bend, and about 40 miles west of Fort Wayne.
As the St. Ignatius hockey team bus was just entering an intersection, the semi clipped the back of it – spinning it 180 degrees from due north to due south.
At the time of the accident, a total of 23 student athletes from the junior varsity boys' hockey team – and two coaches – were on the bus. The hockey players were between 14 and 17 years old.
The semi-truck driver now faces dozens of felony charges.
