The first thing Bryan Rodney wanted to do was pick up his phone.
The bus carrying the 25-year-old defenceman and his Albany River Rats teammates had just rolled over on the Massachusetts Turnpike in the middle of a stormy February night this past hockey season.
"I had the immediate feeling I needed to talk to someone," the former Knight and London native said, "so I called my dad to let him know what had happened to us. Then, it dawned on me and I had to get off the phone. There were teammates hurt and I had to try to help them."
Five people suffered serious injuries in the accident. All 32 players, coaches and staff were taken to hospital as a precaution.
"The tough part was when the bus was lying on its side and you could hear the big trucks whizzing by us," Rodney said. "Any one of them could've hit us and you could see them going around us. It was three in the morning and it was freezing out, but we knew if we didn't get out of there, things could turn out even worse."
The River Rats -- the American Hockey League affiliate of the Carolina Hurricanes -- had been returning from a game in Lowell, Mass. Bus trouble and bad weather is nothing new for hockey players constantly on the move, but this was at a different level.
"It was fate on that trip," Rodney said. "Our original bus had broken down in the middle of nowhere, so we were just sitting on the side of the road.
"It was just like (the Sidney Crosby Tim Hortons commercial). The only thing missing was the pond to play on.
"When you get 20 guys on a bus that isn't moving, it gets pretty boring. So a couple of guys managed to get the hatch open and were popping out and making snowballs."
That idle tomfoolery ended up helping in the rescue.
"When we crashed, the hatch at the back had already been opened and we already knew where it was so we were all able to get out quickly," Rodney said. "In the end, we were all pretty lucky. The thing that doesn't make it so sour is that no one got killed, no one had their career taken away because of injury. Justin Peters (the former Plymouth Whalers goalie from Blyth) had both of his masks crushed.
"One was just flattened. If he had to play the next night, he would've had nothing.
Rodney can smile about it now. He finished an eventful season and golfed Friday in Corey Perry's A Round for A Cure tournament at Forest City National in support of the Wellspring cancer centre.
But memories of that scary night are still fresh.
"Even now, when I'm driving and I hit the rumble strips on the highway, I still get that funny feeling of that crash," he said. "It hasn't gone away yet."
Rodney was a big part of the Knights' 2005 Memorial Cup championship team. He scored a goal in the final 4-0 win over Crosby's Rimouski Oceanic at the John Labatt Centre.
"I'll never forget anyone on that team," he said, "and it's a different thing, but I'll never forget anyone on that bus. I'll remember every guy who was there."
He called the Albany club already a close group of "great guys" before the incident.
"And that only made us tighter," he said.
Rodney's 2008-09 campaign is memorable for more than just the crash. After four years of shuttling around the minors between teams in the AHL and the ECHL, he made his NHL debut for Carolina.
He had two assists in eight games with the Hurricanes.
"It's a dream come true," the six-foot, 204-pounder said. "I had been to that point where you wonder if you're getting to the end of the line in your pro career. But I was given a chance and the Hurricanes are great that way.
"You have legendary guys like Ron Francis, Tom Barrasso and Glen Wesley who played there and have been around a long time and it shows you something that when they were done, they wanted to come back to Carolina."
It's a warm feeling, especially after being out in the cold at the side of a downed bus in the eye of a storm.
