Hockey World Suffers Another Loss

A team picture of Yaroslavl Lokomotiv (Photo Courtesy of Ontheforecheck.com)

The hockey world has faced yet another tragedy this summer, one that will go down as one of the worst disasters in professional sports history.

On September 7,  Yaroslavl Lokomotiv of the Kontinental Hockey League was on a routine flight to Minsk, where they were scheduled to face Dynamo Minsk for the  KHL season opener.

However, after failing to gain altitude upon takeoff, an old private jet,  carrying 45 people crashed into a signal tower prior to the jet splitting into halves in the Volga River, which is located in close proximity to Yaroslavl.

Of the 45 members on the jet, 36 were part of the Lokomotiv organization, while eight were part of the flight crew. All members perished, except for young right wing, Aleksandr Galimov and crew member, Aleksandr Sizov. Galimov  has suffered burns over 90% of his body. He is currently being aided by Vishnevsky Institute in Moscow, and is in critical condition. Sizov is also in "very grave" condition.

Former  allstar, Pavol Demitra, defensemen Karl Rachunek, and Karlis Skarastins were among the group of former NHLers who passed away as a result of the crash.

The KHL hopes to rebuild a team in Yaroslavl to remember all the fatalities in this  towering, unexpected accident. "We will do our best to ensure that hockey in Yaroslavl does not die, and that is continues to live for the people that were on that plane," commented former great Olympic goaltender, Vladislav Tretyak.

The Kontinental Hockey League has suspended the league's actions for the next five days, while it mourns those lost.

Here are the victims of the crash. Got Sports?Blog's  Thoughts and Prayers are with the families and friends who lost loved ones.



List Courtesy of ESPN 

List can be found on right side of their respective article.

Vitaly Anikeyenko
Yury Bakhvalov
Aleksandr Belyayev
Mikhail Balandin
Aleksandr Vasyunov
Josef Vasicek
Aleksandr Vyukhin
Robert Dietrich
Pavol Demitra
Andrei Zimin
Marat Kalimulin
Aleksandr Karpovtsev
Aleksandr Kalyanin
Andrei Kiryukhin
Nikita Klyukin
Igor Korolyov
Nikolai Krivonosov
Yevgeny Kunnov
Vyacheslav Kuznetsov
Stefan Liv
Jan Marek
Brad McCrimmon
Sergey Ostapchuk
Vladimir Piskunov
Karel Rachunek
Evgeny Sidorov
Karlis Skrastins
Ruslan Saley
Pavel Snurnitsyn
Daniil Sobchenko
Ivan Tkachenko
Pavel Trakhanov
Igor Urychev
Gennady Churilov
Maksim Shuvalov
Artyom Yarchuk
Andrey Solontsev
Igor Zhevelov
Sergei Zhuravlev
Vladimir Matyushkin
Yelena Sarmatova
Nadezhda Maksumova
Yelena Shavina