Russian KHL team perishes in plane crash - 9/7/11

The Game Room
1

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey team perishes in plane crash. Only 2 out of 45 survived the crash, one a player, the other a crew member.

Notable players that died in the crash:
Pavol Demitra
Ruslan Salei
Karel Rachunek
Karlis Skrastins
Josef Vasicek

…and Coaches:
Brad McCrimmon
Igor Korolev
Alexander Karpovtsev

I have a cousin on my wife’s side of the family that plays in the KHL, so when I caught wind of this crash, I scrambled for a couple of minutes to find out which team he was playing for (since it’s a new season…trades and changes are usually made offseason), but fortunately, he is on Vityaz Chekhov, a team in the same conference as Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. He may end up being drafted onto the replacement team though, since he seems to be on waivers/hiatus.

I (and my kid’s hockey team) met Ruslan Salei back when he played with the Ducks and visited our hockey team (when I was manager and we had a russian hockey coach) and he was great with the kids and got them pumped up to win their next game against a pretty nasty arch-rival team.

Always liked Pavol Demitra, regardless of what team he was playing for…always gave 110%, and was happy to see him play for the Kings, albeit for a short couple of seasons.

I’m pretty sure some of you here have stories about the other players listed…I would like to hear them.

R.I.P. Lokomotiv.

2

Swedish goalie Stefan Liv (Olympic gold medalist) died in the crash.

3

We are talking about this over in the NHL thread (despite it’s title, it pretty much covers all hockey talk!)

It’s truly tragic. This summer has just been one blow after another in the hockey world, and I’m ready for this to end.

4

Ah…I didn’t check there…

Mods, please merge this thread with the current NHL thread.

5

Tribute, quite beautiful, paid by the team they were supposed to play. Very touching, really.

6

Last surviving team member dies of his injuries.

Jesus, this has been a terrible year for hockey.