Flyers take in Humboldt Broncos player Ryan Straschnitzki while he rehabs in Philadelphia

Dave Isaac | The Courier-Post

Show Caption Hide Caption Humboldt Broncos president: Crash an overwhelming 'tragedy' The president of the Humboldt Broncos, a Canadian junior hockey team, made a statement on Saturday and called the accident that killed 15 people and injured 14 more "a tragedy" that is "unprecedented and overwhelming."

VOORHEES, N.J. — Amid the first-round picks, the franchise-player hopefuls and even the longshots like undrafted Philippe Myers, the person most thankful to be at a hockey rink Friday was Ryan Straschnitzki.

He’s not a Philadelphia Flyers prospect and will almost certainly never play hockey again, at least not the way he used to.

“Just the smell of the ice coming in today brought back so memories of your first time skating and some tournaments you played in as a kid traveling,” he said. “Any way I could be involved in the game…sledge hockey would be amazing. It’s my life, so I’d love to do that.”

He sat in his wheelchair and watched with his father, Tom, Flyers general manager Ron Hextall and other members of the front office while the prospects skated. Soon he might be out there too, on a sled instead of his old skates, back playing the game he loves.

Straschnitzki, 19, played defense for the Humboldt Broncos, a junior-A team in Canada. When the team’s bus crashed with a truck on a highway in Saskatchewan in April, the collision killed 16 people. Straschnitzki was one of 13 survivors, but he has been paralyzed from the chest down.

For the past several weeks he has been rehabbing at Shriner’s Hospital in Philadelphia. Hextall had visited with him a couple times and Friday he was able to make it to the rink for a tour of the practice facility and talk hockey instead of his usual grind.

He needs two hours in the morning set aside to prepare for a full day of physical therapy. Showering and getting changed takes a lot longer than it used to.

“He has a never-give-up attitude,” Tom Straschnitzki said. “He has the ups and downs like the rest of us. When he’s down, we try to push him back up and keep him on the straight and narrow and get him through the right door.”

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“I’ve made quite a bit of progress,” Ryan added. “I was supposed to be in Philly for six to eight weeks. Then the rehab pushed me to my limits and I’m supposedly going home next weekend. I’m excited and I can’t thank the Shriners enough.”

Home is Airdrie, Alberta, a suburb of Calgary. Straschnitzki hasn’t been back there in about seven months, well before the accident that changed his life forever and rocked the hockey world.

“I remember when the accident happened, for myself and everyone involved in hockey, probably including you guys (in the media), it hit home,” said Hextall, choked up after watching Straschnitzki speak with reporters. “Most of us have ridden busses and still ride busses. For something like that to happen, it hit really close to home for everybody and I think you really see the good in people.

"The support that not only Ryan and Tom and their family has gotten but all the other kids as well, from the National Hockey League and the media and just random people donating money, sometimes we see the bad in the human spirit (but) to see something like this has been incredible. Ryan’s an inspiring young man. He’s special. He really is.”

The support has been widespread. Tom Straschnitzki said he has heard from people as far as England and Poland and there’s a huge support staff back in Alberta. Flyers defenseman Andrew MacDonald also reached out to the family and offered up his house in Philadelphia as well as his car for as long as they’ll be in town.

Straschnitzki is well ahead of schedule in his rehabilitation and is careful not to sell himself short. He’s not close to walking, but it doesn’t sound like it’s been ruled out.

“I’ve come a long way and they say there’s some restrictions that I have to wait for from the surgeon, but I’ve come a long way and I’ve done lots of things,” he said. “They’re impressed and I’m just happy.”

He certainly has a lot to look forward to. There has been talk between him and his hometown Calgary Flames about a potential job somewhere down the road and while he called that possibility “amazing” Friday, he added, “I’m just focused on healing first and getting better. We’ll see what happens.”

“We’re trying to turn him into a Flyers fan,” Hextall added. “It’s a little difficult because he’s got the Flames stuff pretty deep. We’re kind of hoping we can at least be No. 2.”

Dave Isaac; @davegisaac; 856-486-2479; disaac@gannett.com