HUMBOLDT, Saskatchewan — People flooded the sports and social complex in the small Canadian town of Humboldt on Saturday, seeking solace after learning the devastating news that much of the roster of its beloved junior hockey team had been killed, and many others wounded, in a terrible highway crash the day before.

Fifteen people died when a bus carrying the team, the Humboldt Broncos, to a Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League playoff game collided with a tractor-trailer near Tisdale, where two rural highways intersect, late Friday afternoon. The other 14 people aboard were injured. The team’s head coach, Darcy Haugan, was among the dead.

“The worst nightmare has happened,” said the league’s president, Bill Chow, at an emotional news conference Saturday at the complex, where the team was scheduled to return to play a home game Sunday night. Instead, the town will hold a vigil for them there, where the stairs leading into the arena were covered with flowers, teddy bears and hockey jerseys Saturday night.

The team has a storied history, having twice won national championships, and, as a community-owned squad, it holds a central place in this town of about 4,800 people. The players, aged 16 to 21, are mainstays at community fund-raisers, hospitals and senior citizen homes. During a big snowstorm this past winter, they all went out to shovel people’s driveways, former Mayor Malcolm Eaton said.