Goals for Gurney: Wisconsin girls hockey team mourns loss of teammate

EXCELSIOR, Wis. (FOX 9) - It's Friday night and the U12 Blue Devils girl’s hockey team is playing in the Independent Classic Tournament at the Maple Grove Ice Center.

But the Blue Devils are taking the ice without one of their fellow players.

"It's been emotional. Things like this are not easy to process," Blue Devils Coach Tim Hoehn told FOX 9.

Evelyn Gurney was struck and killed by a pickup truck while getting on a school bus in the town of Excelsior, Wisconsin late last week.

Her coaches say the 13-year-old was a standout hockey player who always gave it her all and dreamed of one-day playing hockey in college.

"It was devastating. You know what I mean? Shocking," said Joe Uminski, who coached Gurney for several years for Reedsburg Wisconsin Dells Youth Hockey.

In their first game since Evelyn died, the Blue Devils honored her with a moment of silence before the first faceoff.

They also hung Evelyn's jersey behind their bench and wore her name and number on their sticks, helmets and faces.

"I believe they'll get lost in the moment when they're playing and it'll start helping to heal a little bit of that open wound that's going to take a long time to heal," said Uminski.

As fate would have it, the Blue Devils beat the Mustangs 4-2, which also happened to be the numbers on Evelyn's jersey when she played on the Reedsburg Wisconsin Dells Youth hockey team last winter, suggesting her spirit may have been on the ice with her team after all.

"We really want to represent who she was and what she was to us," said Hoehn.

A GoFundMe to help Evelyn's family has raised more than $90,000. Some of that money will now go towards bringing a new ice rink to Reedsburg, Wisconsin in Evelyn's name.