Humboldt father says Netflix hockey series ‘turns my stomach’

The series, now in production, is set in the fictional Minnesota town of South Dorothy and follows a high school hockey team after a bus crash kills players and the team’s longtime coach. According to Netflix, the story focuses on how the community attempts to rebuild, with the coach’s widow, played by Michelle Monaghan, stepping in to coach the team.

Netflix has not said the Humboldt Broncos inspired the series.

Thomas said the similarities were impossible to ignore.

“This is so clearly based on our tragedy,” he said. “And it turns my stomach.”

The Humboldt Broncos crash occurred on April 6, 2018, when the team’s bus collided with a semi-trailer at a rural Saskatchewan intersection while travelling to a playoff game. The tragedy devastated families and communities and drew international attention.

Nearly seven years later, Thomas said the loss remains raw and unrelenting.

“This is a tragedy that we are still living every day,” he said. “There is no feel-good ending to this story.”

Thomas said he was especially disturbed by the direction the fictional storyline appears to take.

“From what I’m assuming, where they’re going with this is: bus crashes, hockey players die, wife picks up the team and brings them back to glory,” he said. “And in the end, everybody’s happy.”

“That’s just complete trash,” he said. “That’s not what happened to us. At all.”

Thomas said he worries viewers, particularly those unfamiliar with Humboldt, could come away with a false understanding of what families endured.

“If people watch this and think everything turned out OK, that’s just not true,” he said. “We continue to battle with the loss of our son every single day.”

He rejected the idea that tragedy could be reshaped into a story of redemption or triumph.

“There is no phoenix rising from the ashes here,” Thomas said. “There just isn’t.”

Thomas said he was not consulted about the Netflix project and was not aware of any outreach to families or survivors.

“I can only speak for myself, I know I wasn’t consulted,” he said.

While he acknowledged the crash was a national and international news story, he said that did not justify fictionalizing it.

“If this was a documentary based in reality, fact and truth that’s different,” Thomas said. “But this isn’t that. This is completely fictionalized.”

Thomas said he was not naive about the possibility that a dramatized story resembling Humboldt would eventually be made.

“We always knew something like this was coming,” he said. “But it feels early, and it feels very close to home.”

He also questioned how a project of this scale moved forward without anyone recognizing its real-world parallels.

“What’s Netflix worth — billions and billions of dollars?” Thomas said. “It wouldn’t take long to do a quick Google search.”

“Somebody, somewhere, had to know,” he said.

Thomas said he wished survivors and families had been consulted before the project moved ahead.

“I would have liked survivors and families to have had some consultation,” he said. “To get the real story.”

At minimum, he said, those behind the series owe families an explanation.

“I just want them to explain their thought process,” Thomas said. “How this was green-lit.”

Netflix has not announced a release date for the series.

by Jacob Bamhour - CKOM News

Humboldt father says Netflix hockey series ‘turns my stomach’

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