Entire KHL team dies in plane crash
September 7, 2011 12:09 PM   Subscribe

A charter plane carrying the entirety of the KHL Lokomotiv hockey team crashed upon takeoff, killing 43. Several of the players were former NHLers, including the coach, Canadian-born Brad McCrimmon (formerly a Red Wings player and assistant coach), Pavol Demitra, Ruslan Salei, Karls Skrastins, and Olympic Gold-winning goalie Stephan Liv of Sweden. This tragedy further mars an offseason where 3 current or retired NHL players died suddenly. posted by kpht (61 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
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posted by Flood at 12:11 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by Pendragon at 12:11 PM on September 7, 2011


(. x43)
posted by kpht at 12:11 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by drezdn at 12:12 PM on September 7, 2011


Jesus Christ, that's awful.
posted by padraigin at 12:13 PM on September 7, 2011 [1 favorite]


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posted by mitzyjalapeno at 12:13 PM on September 7, 2011


This may be the correct Edmonton Metro link.
posted by padraigin at 12:14 PM on September 7, 2011


The Metro link is the same as the first one.
posted by cardboard at 12:16 PM on September 7, 2011


This has to be the shittiest summer for professional hockey.
Too many deaths.
Sad.
posted by DonnyMac at 12:16 PM on September 7, 2011


Oops! You're right, padraigin. I'm still new at FPPs and I also have a toddler screaming for more cheese, so I had to kind of rush this. Really depressing to me, as I'm a huge hockey fan and I've seen nearly everyone who played in the NHL post-lockout play a game.
posted by kpht at 12:17 PM on September 7, 2011


AV Herald link. They are reporting there were a couple of survivors.
posted by backseatpilot at 12:18 PM on September 7, 2011


Oh Christ. What a tragedy.

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posted by cereselle at 12:18 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by Navelgazer at 12:18 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by spinifex23 at 12:19 PM on September 7, 2011


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This is truly awful.
posted by josher71 at 12:19 PM on September 7, 2011


Damn
posted by Sailormom at 12:20 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by zizzle at 12:28 PM on September 7, 2011


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Horrible summer for professional hockey.

Hearsay is that the plane was old and due to be decommissioned soon and wouldn't have been cleared to fly in Western Europe.

Link to video of the crashed plane.
posted by porpoise at 12:29 PM on September 7, 2011


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I watched Brad McCrimmon in the 80s when he played for the Philadelphia Flyers. Damn shame all those people lost their lives.
posted by inturnaround at 12:31 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by cazoo at 12:33 PM on September 7, 2011


Reminds me of the Munich Air Disaster
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:33 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by dismas at 12:36 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:39 PM on September 7, 2011


Hearsay is that the plane was old and due to be decommissioned soon and wouldn't have been cleared to fly in Western Europe.

The article I was reading earlier today (which I can no longer find) about this said it was a Yak-42, and that all Yak-42's were set to be decommissioned next year. What a tragedy.

And can I just say, once again, that I hate it when local news prefaces these kinds of stories with lines like "Canadian coach dies in Russian plane crash" - yes, as well as a whole lot of other people. I'm not going to relate more or less to this story just because the coach of the hockey team happened to be Canadian. But that's just a pet peeve of mine.
posted by antifuse at 12:39 PM on September 7, 2011 [2 favorites]


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posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 12:43 PM on September 7, 2011


Oh my god, this is just terrible.
posted by biscotti at 12:43 PM on September 7, 2011


I don't watch much KHL, but it looks like they were a really good team. I was familiar with Pavol Demitra and Karlis Skrastins from the NHL, but also from the 2010 Olympics where I got to see both Slovakia and Latvia play some truly incredible hockey Demitra in particular was a star in those Olympics, showing what he could do in a more finesse-oriented game than the NHL offers and showing us what that game could look like. And the Latvian team with Skrastins earned a place in my heart for a truly epic quarterfinal match against the Czechs, which goes down as one of the most exciting games I've ever seen and one of the best, grittiest performances I've ever seen from a team outmatched in skill.

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posted by Hoopo at 12:43 PM on September 7, 2011 [3 favorites]


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This has been a very tough summer for the game.
posted by never used baby shoes at 12:47 PM on September 7, 2011


McCrimmon was a mainstay on the Philadelphia Flyers in the early- to mid-80s, serving as a stalwart defender along with Mark Howe. He was very popular locally. Very sad for all involved.
posted by VicNebulous at 12:52 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by dbscissors at 12:59 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:05 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by 4ster at 1:10 PM on September 7, 2011


Derek Boogaard died of an overdose due to painkiller addiction in May. Then Rick Rypien and Wade Belak committed suicide barely more than two weeks apart in August.

All of this death in so little time is horrific.

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posted by cmyk at 1:10 PM on September 7, 2011


I can't even process.

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posted by The demon that lives in the air at 1:16 PM on September 7, 2011


Staggering. I remember Dimitra from the good days of the St. Louis Blues.

Just unbelivable.
posted by eriko at 1:17 PM on September 7, 2011


unbelievable .
posted by downing street memo at 1:18 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by shakespeherian at 1:22 PM on September 7, 2011


Truly awful. A sad day for hockey and Russia.
posted by wowbobwow at 1:42 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by Elly Vortex at 1:48 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by JohnnyGunn at 1:54 PM on September 7, 2011


. Terrible.
posted by Ironmouth at 2:10 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by mikel at 2:16 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by mek at 2:16 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by heatvision at 2:58 PM on September 7, 2011


Very, very sad day that will be felt for decades to come. I can only think of the Marshall tragedy and how that still has an impact -- and with all of those guys and the many teams they played for, the NHL (and every league) will be hurting for a while.

Terrible. Just terrible.
posted by Madamina at 2:58 PM on September 7, 2011 [1 favorite]


No no no! Man...no words. This sucks.
posted by Brak at 4:35 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by clavdivs at 4:53 PM on September 7, 2011


I'm so sorry for their families and loved ones. Tragic.

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posted by cooker girl at 4:55 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by xedrik at 5:40 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by Lukenlogs at 5:40 PM on September 7, 2011


This is fucking horrible.
posted by rollbiz at 5:44 PM on September 7, 2011


A friend of mine wrote in honor of Joseph Vasicek:

There was one night when I and a couple ladies that worked for Adam and Eve were hanging out in back of the RBC Center (then the ESA) waiting for all the players to roll out. It was late, it was nippy, but we waited because one of the women I was hanging out with had a shirt that she wanted to have signed by all the players so she could give it to her husband.
The last car pulls up, and the player--a rookie--rolls his window down. The lady with the shirt asked him to sign her shirt and write on it "She froze her ass off for you". He didn't speak English very well (read: at all), so it came out as SAE FROZE OFF AS.

That rookie was Josef Vasicek, and it will always be my favourite memory of him. Thanks for the memories, Big Joe. (and now I am going to cry)

posted by NoMich at 6:17 PM on September 7, 2011 [5 favorites]


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posted by gudrun at 6:20 PM on September 7, 2011


I was just reading about this on another hockey site.

Reports from later in the day had two survivors, one of them a player - Galimov? I think that was his name..

Another report said the mother of one deceased Russian player, upon hearing the news, had a heart attack and died.
posted by mannequito at 6:51 PM on September 7, 2011


I think that after the immediacy of this subsides and answers are sought, the hockey world may look at the KHL with more scrutiny - first the Alexei Cherapanov tragedy and everything behind that (team doctors doping him possibly, slow medical response to his collapse), and now this - hiring a low-cost charter airline using very old, worn planes. I had heard players complained about the sketchiness of the planes before (taking pictures of tires with belts poking through, etc). The KHL offers big bucks and can lure players from the NHL (especially native Russians) but it is cutting costs in other ways, it looks like.
posted by kpht at 7:31 PM on September 7, 2011


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posted by lilkeith07 at 8:06 PM on September 7, 2011


This is terrible but the post didn't need the heavy NHL focus. It ends up sounding like the dead Russian and other non-NHL players are a footnote.
posted by 6550 at 11:49 PM on September 7, 2011


Too awful.

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posted by kinnakeet at 6:07 AM on September 8, 2011


This is a pretty gut wrenching story:
Reality Check
posted by NoMich at 7:35 AM on September 8, 2011


The NYT story also mentions the Marshall crash, as well as Wichita State--and the 1950 Sverdlovsk crash that was covered up by Joseph Stalin's son, then the manager of the Soviet Air Force team, who "immediately recruited a new team, and his father apparently never knew the difference."


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posted by FlyingMonkey at 9:09 AM on September 8, 2011


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posted by jlkr at 6:27 PM on September 8, 2011


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