This shit is crazy. 36 dead in a plane crash carrying the Lokamotiv KHL team. Former NHLers on the team were: Pavol Demitra, Karel Rachunek, Karlis Skrastins, Josef Vasicek, and Ruslan Salei, no actual report yet on which players were on the plane. I am assuming that most, if not all, of the team was on the plane since they were on their way to play a game.
A passenger jet carrying a KHL hockey team has crashed while taking
off in western Russia, killing 36 people, according to the country's
emergency situations ministry.
The ministry's regional branch said the Yak-42 plane carrying the
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team crashed Wednesday after leaving an airport near
the city of Yaroslavl, on the Volga River northeast of Moscow. It said
at least one person has survived but is injured.
Russia
Today reported on its website that several of the victims were foreign
players for the club, but the news agency did not list any names.
The team's website lists Canadian Brad McCrimmon, a former NHL
player, as head coach, and says the team includes two Canadian players
with NHL appearances — Ramzi Abid and Riley Armstrong, brother of
Toronto Maple Leafs forward Colby Armstrong.
The team's 2011 roster
also includes former Vancouver Canuck Pavol Demitra and former Ottawa
Senator Karel Rachunek, as well as former NHLers Josef Vasicek and
Karlis Skrastins.
But it is unclear whether any of those players were on board the plane that crashed Wednesday.
The team was heading to Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where it was
to play Thursday against Dinamo Minsk in the opening game of the season
of the Kontinental Hockey League.
The KHL is a league of several ex-Soviet nations that has attracted a number of NHL players to Russia in recent years.
McCrimmon, originally from Dodsland, Saskatchewan, is a former
assistant coach for the New York Islanders, Calgary Flames, Atlanta
Thrashers and Detroit Red Wings. His NHL career spanned 18 seasons and
1,222 games with five teams, including the Flames, the Boston Bruins,
Philadelphia Flyers and Detroit.
