Former NHL players shaken by Humboldt Broncos crash during visit to Saskatoon

Mike Modano says the memories came flooding back Friday night. The early mornings and late nights, black ice and blizzards, and the camaraderie forged sharing a bus with teammates over hundreds of kilometres of Prairie highway.

Modano is in the NHL Hall of Fame now, a legendary sniper with a gold-plated resume.

"It was really an odd feeling there to be back here and be so close and to hear what happened," he said in an interview Sunday.

Modano joined a handful of NHL alumni this weekend in Saskatoon for a Heart and Stroke Foundation fundraiser. It's called Hockey Heroes Weekend and it allows participants to suit up and play with their NHL heroes.

Modano said they learned about the accident midway through their Friday night banquet.

"It was just devastating, I can't imagine what everybody's feeling there, and the families and the billets, the team, the whole city," he said.

"Being in Prince Albert for about three years, Humboldt, Nipawin, those cities were important to P.A. and the hockey community and the kids that play in the game."

Modano played in Minnesota, Dallas and Detroit over his career. But on this day, he was thinking about country roads.

To think back about all the nights we travelled home through bad weather. We all did it, we've all been there, we've seen it.- Mike Modano

"It was hard, it was tough. You're in the prairies of Saskatchewan, Alberta, you got four, five, six in the morning bus rides home, the snow, the blizzard, black ice," he said.

"To think back about all the nights we travelled home through bad weather. We all did it, we've all been there, we've seen it."

Modano said he and other NHL alumni tried to get to the hospital this weekend to offer support to victims and their families.

"It's just so busy and hectic it's been hard for them to accommodate everybody coming in and out of there," he said.

Modano said he and his fellow NHL alumni are thinking of everyone touched by the tragedy.

"We've talked about it, we're all just at a loss for words," he said.

The players observed a moment of silence before the alumni game Sunday afternoon.