A Russian jet carrying a local ice hockey team crashed Wednesday while taking off in western Russia, killing 36 people and leaving one critically injured, officials said.
The ministry said the plane was carrying the Lokomotiv ice hockey team from Yaroslavl.
Also to note that Jan Marek also died in the crash (if the entire roster was on board, which is debatable right now according to the KHL board). He was acquired from the Rangers a couple years ago, but never did sign or dress with the Kings. However, due to the lack of a Russia-NHL transfer agreement, he was still Kings property.
I hope the Kings wear a tribute patch to Demitra. I am still upset that he was traded for POS. He was always one of my favorites, a sad, sad day in hockey today and an awful summer for the hockey world.
Demitra was one of my favorite Kings in the small amount of time he was here and I suspect if we weren't going full on rebuild he'd have been here much longer. Great player and from everything I heard, a real class act. He will be missed if he was indeed on the plane.
I hope the Kings do honor him somehow. Even if it's just a moment of silence and a tribute at the home opener, something. Once a King, always a King.
May God be with the families and loved ones of those who died, and my prayers go out to that one person who survived. Hopefully we can see a miracle happen and he/she survives, give us something positive to cling to from this sad day.
Demitra was one of my favorite Kings in the small amount of time he was here and I suspect if we weren't going full on rebuild he'd have been here much longer. Great player and from everything I heard, a real class act. He will be missed if he was indeed on the plane.
I hope the Kings do honor him somehow. Even if it's just a moment of silence and a tribute at the home opener, something. Once a King, always a King.
May God be with the families and loved ones of those who died, and my prayers go out to that one person who survived. Hopefully we can see a miracle happen and he/she survives, give us something positive to cling to from this sad day.
Well said.
I would be shocked if the Kings didn't honor him in some way.
Is it confirmed that Salei and Demitra were on the plane?
Nothing has been confirmed as far as names go. However, a spokesperson for Lokomotiv states that their main roster plus four youth team players were on board. So I haven't heard anything to contradict Demitra being on board. However, there is some talk that Ruslan Salei, who is from Minsk, was already there waiting for the team. So he may have survived the crash.
Reports are saying that two or three people survived. If only two have survived, the player that survived was Alexander Galimov. The other survivor was a crew member. The identity or even affiliation (team or crew) of the third person, if there is a third and I hope there is, hasn't been mentioned yet.
It's like unfathomable how much pain the league has gone through this offseason. It's just purely ridiculous. Words just cannot describe how crazy this is. Terrible news. A lot of great players have lost their lives this summer. RIP.
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"It has not been a good day. I lost my glasses early this morning and I had to go buy a pair of 79 dollar reading glasses today. 79 bucks. You can literally get them at Costco, three-for-20." - Darryl Sutter's response to going up 2-0 in the series.
Very sad day. Hockey players or not they all had people who loved them. Being a hockey huge hockey fan this seems to hit me harder than I thought. I feel so sad and this makes you think how short life really is.
Take care of your friends and family and keep your prayers for those that were lost in your heart.
