Tragedy once again strikes hockey world: Farewell Yaroslavl Lokomotiv

For North American hockey fans, it had already been a season of loss.  First, was the loss of Derek Boogaard from an accidental combination of oxycodone and alcohol.  Then came the death of Rick Rypien.  At that point, fans like myself began to feel it was time for the regular season to start.  However, as the old myth goes, deaths (unfortunately) seem to come in threes.  When the hockey world heard the news of the suicide of Wade Belak, everyone had the feeling of “this has to be the end of the bad news.”  Sadly, that was not to be the case, nor was it just going to be a North American loss.

This past Wednesday, the hockey world truly experienced a sense of loss and grief that had never been seen before.  For those of us in North America, the event in the form of a tragic plane crash, happened thousands of miles from us, in a league that few of us even follow.  Yet for many of us, there were names and faces we knew well as hockey fans.  The former NHL’ers on that plane were men we either cheered for or against on a nightly basis.  And now there is a hole that cannot be filled.  In fact, had the crash not happened, I’m sure we would have seen some of those faces in North America again.

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Lost were former or prospective NHLers:

Brad McCrimmon
Pavol Demitra
Ruslan Salei
Josef Vasicek
Karel Rachunek
Karlis Skrastins
Alexander Vasyunov
Alex Karpovtsev
Igor Korolev

When losses like these happen, it doesn’t matter what language we speak, where we’re from, the color of our skin, or the religion we believe in.  And in the world of sports, that extends to the team we cheer for.  Yaroslavl was on their way to Minsk to play their regular season opener on Thursday evening.  That game never happened, however the people in Minsk showed up.  They showed up to pay their respect to their opponents, in an Orthodox Christian requiem.  It didn’t matter that I could not understand one word spoken at the mass.  In times like these, we find our hearts all speak the same language. 

For Minnesota Wild fans, we found that once again this summer we lost one of our own.  While Demitra has been away from Minnesota for a while now, many of us still remember the excitement we felt when NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman announced the trade of Patrick O’Sullivan for Demitra at the 2006 NHL Entry Draft.  It felt like a major step in the right direction.  Of course we felt the pain when he chose to continue his career in Vancouver.  Sadly, Demitra will be joining former Wild players who died too young, Sergei Zholtok and Derek Boogaard.

I have to admit, I had to do a lot of thinking before writing this entry.  With today being the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon here in the United States, it was a hard one to write.  I wanted to give the tragedy in Russia its due respect without ignoring the fact of today’s sad anniversary.  For people of my generation, 9/11 and the Challenger explosion were those moments you remember where you were when they happened.  For people of my mom’s generation, it was the Kennedy assassination.  For hockey fans, many of us will add where we were when we learned of the loss of Yaroslavl Lokomotiv.

In honor of former Wild member Pavol Demitra and to honor those who lost their lives on 9/11, I will end with this simple tribute.  Sure the video is nothing more than a still shot of Demitra, but it’s the music behind it; a simple, yet powerful string quartet rendition of that classic hymn, “Nearer My God to Thee.”  All who lost their lives in this plane crash, the earlier deaths to young hockey players, and those we lost ten years ago are now nearer to the god of their choice.  Farewell, but never forgotten.