FREDERICTON - A charity basketball tournament was held Saturday in Fredericton to honour the seven high school basketball players killed in a horrific head-on collision on a northern New Brunswick highway three weeks ago.
The seven teens, along with the wife of their coach, were killed in the early hours of Jan. 12 as a van carrying the Bathurst High Phantoms returned from a game in Moncton.
Former students of Bathurst High organized a 24-hour, non-stop tournament on the University of New Brunswick campus, with proceeds going toward a scholarship in the boys' names.
"Everybody has either played sports or knows somebody that's played sports on road trips or had kids," Bathurst High alumnus Brian Schryer, who planned the event, said.
"Everybody can relate to this in a way and wants to have a hand in helping this cause."
About 300 players from across the Maritimes signed up for the event.
Grade 12 student Jordan Frenette, co-captain of the Phantoms who missed the ill-fated Moncton trip because he was sick, said the event was helping some students cope.
"It keeps the whole situation in mind, but at the same time it takes your mind off of it, because you're focused on playing rather than the situation that brought this upon us," Frenette said.
Frenette said students at his school are finally starting to feel a sense of normalcy.
"It's starting to get back to kind of normal, starting to get into a routine, starting classes again," he said.
"Everybody's starting to become in a little bit better mood, and they're all helping each other through it."
The police have blamed poor weather for sending the van colliding into an oncoming tractor-trailer.
Four others in the van were injured, including the team's coach, who was driving the van.
