KHL Team Plane Crash

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espn.go.com/new-york/nhl/story/_/id/6939064/russian-jet-said-carrying-lokomotiv-khl-crashes-43-dead
MOSCOW – A Russian jet said to be carrying a KHL ice hockey team crashed Wednesday while taking off in western Russia, killing at least 43 people.
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The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said the Yak-42 plane crashed immediately after taking off from an airport near the city of Yaroslavl, on the Volga River about 150 miles northeast of Moscow.
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The ministry said the plane was carrying 45 people, including 37 passengers and eight crew. The ministry said all but two people were killed in the crash.
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The ministry said the plane was carrying the Lokomotiv ice hockey team from Yaroslavl. 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 Continental Hockey League.
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The weather was sunny and clear at the time.
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The KHL is an international club league that pits together teams from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Slovakia.
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Lokomotiv Yaroslavl is a leading force in Russian hockey and finished third in the KHL last year. It’s coached by Canadian Brad McCrimmon and includes several international stars in its ranks, such as Stefan Liv of Sweden and Czech Republic players Josef Vaicek and Jan Marek.
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It wasn’t immediately clear which players were on board on Wednesday.
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Lokomotiv was a three-time Russian League champion in 1997, 2002 and 2003. It took bronze last season.
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President Dmitry Medvedev has announced plans to take aging Soviet-built planes out of service starting next year. The short- and medium-range Yak-42 has been in service since 1980 and dozens are still in service with Russian and other airlines.
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In June, another Russian passenger jet crashed in the northwestern city of Petrozavodsk, killing 47 people. The crash of that Tu-134 plane has been blamed on pilot error.
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Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press
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I’m a big hockey fan and this has been a rough off season (lots of deaths). Two of the team members were former members of the Red Wings (last year). Brand McCrimmon (coach) and Ruslan Salei (defense) are members of the team on the plane. No names have been released, but it’s safe to assume those two were on board.

Prayers for everyone involved…
 
I had a rather disconcerting experience with the Russian (formerly Soviet) airline Aeroflot. We boarded a very old looking plane with an image of fireworks on the tail, it wouldn’t start properly (someone said one of the engines started and then died, but I don’t know if that was true), and we had to wait half a day for a new plane, which when it arrived looked even older (must not have been repainted in well over a decade- actually it might have been the one with the fireworks, my memory is getting fuzzy now) and in worse shape than the other. Judging from Google Images these Yak-42s seem to be about the same size as both these planes, though I couldn’t tell you for sure if they were that.
 
I’ve read a lot of articles on this the last hour or so. I saw in one that the planes are set to be replaced “soon”. I don’t know if that’s true or not, of course.
 
nicolep said:
I’m a big hockey fan and this has been a rough off season (lots of deaths). Two of the team members were former members of the Red Wings (last year). Brand McCrimmon (coach) and Ruslan Salei (defense) are members of the team on the plane. No names have been released, but it’s safe to assume those two were on board.

Prayers for everyone involved…
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My son just mentioned the crash to me. He played up to Juniors, and he had the opportunity to play against a top Russian team when he played AAA youth hockey. Chances are he played against a couple of the guys on the plane. Prayers for all.
 
So tragic. Whenever something awful happens in a sport your a fan of, it really hits home.

Prayers for everyone involved.
 
It has definitely hit home. It’s hard to fathom. An entire team died in that crash.
 
Pavol Dmitra is one name I had heard many times, though I do not know but a few players by face in the NHL. I do have a friend who knows the NHL and their players the way a lot of people might know baseball, football or basketball.
Former Kings forward Pavol Demitra and former Ducks defenseman Ruslan Salei were among 43 people killed when a plane carrying a Russian hockey league team crashed shortly after takeoff on Wednesday, Russian officials have confirmed.
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latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2011/09/pavol-demitra-ruslan-salei-russian-plane-crash.html

Sadly, this reminds me too a bit of when that plane carrying all of those Polish officials went down.

Unfortunately, we in the US, still do have our share of planes that went down with sports teams, I believe the case has usually been collegiate teams, Evansville Aces, Marshall of course (We are Marshall) and the Okla. State Cowboys which occurred, maybe 12 years ago, in that time frame.

I really pray for the victims, what a shocking story.
 
Gift_from_God said:
This has been a tragic summer for hockey
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It has. Ruslan Salei played for my favorite team (Detroit) last year. There was a lot of talk about his pregnant wife throughout the season, and he took time away from hockey when she gave birth. That was the first thing I thought of when I read about this. What a tragic event.
 
freethinker83 said:
It has. Ruslan Salei played for my favorite team (Detroit) last year. There was a lot of talk about his pregnant wife throughout the season, and he took time away from hockey when she gave birth. That was the first thing I thought of when I read about this. What a tragic event.
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The head coach of the team, Brad McCrimmon, was also the defense coach for the Wings for several years and died in the crash.
 
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