Crash kills 7 Canada school basketball players
Van driver's wife is also dead
Associated Press
BATHURST, New Brunswick — A van carrying a Canadian high school boys' basketball team collided with a truck on Saturday, killing seven students on their way home from a game and the driver's wife.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sgt. Derek Strong said the seven players — aged between 15 and 18 — were pronounced dead at the crash site after their van crossed the center line and hit the tractor-trailer shortly after midnight.
The accident occurred as the team was returning home to Bathurst from Moncton in Canada's far eastern New Brunswick province, Strong said. Road conditions were said to be slippery.
Strong said most of the victims were ejected from the van.
"This is a whole community in mourning," Bathurst High School superintendent John McLaughlin said. "It's unthinkable what happened and everyone's trying to make some sense of it."
There were 12 people in the van. The four survivors are expected to recover. The truck driver was not hurt.
The driver of the van was a teacher at Bathurst High School and his wife was a teacher at another school, Bathurst Mayor Stephen Brunet said.
New Brunswick's road network. Bathurst is located in the province's north coast on the Baie des Chaleurs. 
A deadly road crash in New Brunswick, Canada has claimed the lives of eight people near the city of Bathurst on Saturday. A van carrying 12 people was returning from a school basketball game in Moncton when it slid on an icy highway and collided with a semi-trailer truck.

Of the dead, seven were members of the Bathurst High School boys basketball team and the other was a teacher, the van driver's wife. The survivors are three teammates and a coach who was driving the van, all of whom were hospitalised at Chaleur Regional Hospital in Bathurst. The driver of the semi-trailer was uninjured. The crash occurred on New Brunswick Route 8 as it approached the junction with Route 11 into Bathurst.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed his shock and condolences, describing the tragedy as "unthinkable". New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham also expressed his condolences.