A tight-knit Southern Alberta hockey community is mourning after three players with the Southern Alberta Mustangs were killed Monday morning in a highway collision while travelling to practice.

RCMP say the crash occurred at an intersection along Highway 2 near Stavely, roughly an hour south of Calgary.

The victims were identified as JJ Wright and Cameron Casorso, both 18 and originally from Kamloops, B.C., and 17-year-old Caden Fine of Birmingham, Alabama.

Police said a northbound semi hauling gravel collided with a small passenger vehicle travelling east. The semi’s driver, a 40-year-old man from Stavely, suffered minor injuries. The investigation into the collision remains ongoing.

The Mustangs, who play in the U.S. Premier Hockey League, confirmed the deaths in a social media statement, saying the organization is working with authorities and asking for privacy for the families.

“There are no words that can adequately express the depth of our grief,” the team wrote. “These young men were more than hockey players. They were teammates, sons, brothers and friends, and they were deeply loved in our Mustangs family and the communities we call home.”

At the Stavely arena, residents gathered quietly as three white and red Mustangs jerseys bearing the players’ names were laid out on a table, flanked by three upright hockey sticks — a familiar symbol of loss in Canada’s hockey towns.

Premier Danielle Smith offered condolences online, saying the tragedy has shaken the province’s hockey community.

“The whole Alberta hockey family is standing with you in sorrow and in prayer,” Smith wrote. “Albertans will surround these families and this team with love and support in the days ahead.”

Wright and Casorso were longtime members of the Kamloops Minor Hockey Association, which said both players developed through the B.C. program before continuing their junior careers in Alberta. The association said Casorso played from 2012 to 2025 and Wright from 2011 to 2025.

“Though their hockey paths started here in Kamloops, they found a second home with the Southern Alberta Mustangs,” the association said. “We grieve together as a hockey family forever changed.”

The Calgary Flames also acknowledged the loss, posting a message of support for the families, teammates and communities affected.

For many, the crash has stirred painful memories of previous tragedies involving junior hockey teams on rural highways. In April 2018, 16 people were killed when the Humboldt Broncos’ bus collided with a semi at a rural Saskatchewan intersection while the team was en route to a playoff game.

Humboldt Mayor Rob Muench reached out to the Mustangs community on social media, offering words of solidarity.

“We stand with your community as you mourn this heartbreaking loss,” he wrote.