I’ve been on those road trips.

A snowy highway. A van packed full of kids, hockey gear and parents. Eagerly anticipating the games ahead, and yes, the road-trip highjinks in the hotel, for kids and adults alike.

They’re some of the best memories I have of being a hockey dad.

But there was always that … what if …

Hockey is a cold weather sport, attracting teams from all over the continent to tournaments in cold weather locales. If you live in California and your kid plays high-level travel hockey, you travel, a lot. By air and by land, often in snowy and icy conditions.

During my son’s travels through youth club hockey, then Junior A, then college, we’ve been to countless destinations to watch him play — and sometimes, especially as he got older, he rode on a team bus to go without us. Many of those games were in places where you will see inclement weather, and some warm-weather locales, too: Chicago. Vancouver. Boston. Phoenix (yes, Phoenix. A lot. And Las Vegas, too.) Salt Lake City. Boston. Quebec City. Philadelphia.

And … Colorado.

I’ve been to watch my kid play, at various levels, all over Colorado — including Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and Boulder.

When I heard that members of the Santa Clarita Flyers’ 12AA girls hockey team had been involved in a collision Thursday on Interstate 70 en route to a playoff hockey........

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