Remembering The Players of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl

Needless to say, today is a terrible day for hockey. Yet another such day in a summer to forget.

The private jet carrying the Russian Kontinental Hockey League team Lokomotiv Yaroslavl crashed just after taking off, killing 43 or 45 people on board. The entire team perished, with the exception of Alexander Gailamov who was in critical condition with burns up to 90% of his body. A plane crew person also survived the crash. 

The Yaroslavl team featured several names familiar to National Hockey League fans. I spent the afternoon sharing my memories of the following former NHLers:

Remembering Pavol Demitra

Remembering Brad McCrimmon

Remembering Igor Korolev

Remembering Josef Vasicek

Remembering Alexander Karpovtsev

Remembering Ruslan Salei

Remembering Karel Rachunek

Remembering Karlis Skrastins

Also, Alexander Vasylunov played 18 games with the New Jersey Devils last season, but returned to his native Yaroslavl this season.

Non NHL players who perished in the plane crash were Vitali Anikienko, Mikhail Balandin, Gennady Churilov, Robert Dietrich, Marat Kalimulin, Alexander Kalyanin, Andrei Kiryukhin, Nikita Klyukin, Stefan Liv, Jan Marek, Sergei Ostapchuk, Maxim Shuvalov, Pavel Snurnitsyn, Daniil Sobchenko, Ivan Tkachenko, Pavel Trakhanov, Yuri Urychev, Alexander Vyukhin, and Artem Yarchuk.

Here is the team's 2011 team photo (click to enlarge):

To make the tragedy even worse, there are reports that the mother of Sergey Ostapchuk died of a heart attack upon hearing of her son's death.

This is not the first time the sports world has had to deal with an air disaster. CBC has a list of notable sports air disasters.

CBC failed to include a notable hockey plane crash from 1948. I will have more on that plane crash here soon.