Members of a girls ice hockey team from Santa Clarita were involved in a deadly traffic collision Thursday while traveling in Colorado.
The crash occurred just before 9 a.m. Thursday on Interstate 70 in Clear Creek County, Colorado, when a van carrying members of the Santa Clarita Lady Flyers hockey team struck a Colorado Department of Transportation snow plow, according to the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office.
Among those in the van were three players from the team, which is made up of athletes ages 12 and younger, authorities said.
The driver of the van was killed at the scene, and two other vehicles were also involved in the collision, authorities said.
Eight other people were injured and hospitalized, including five youths and three adults.
Authorities did not immediately release information about their conditions.
“This is a message I never imagined I would send. I’m writing to confirm that there was a terrible traffic accident this morning in Colorado involving members of our Lady Flyer 12AA team,” Prescott Littlefield, president of the Santa Clarita Flyers, said in a statement posted on Instagram. “Words cannot express the heartbreak we are experiencing. Please hold these families in your prayers.”
Littlefield confirmed the van’s driver, who died at the scene, was the father of one of the players on the team.