remembrance

Amongst those who died in the plane crash that took the lives of the entire Locomotiv hockey team on September 7th 2011, I want to pay respect to a few names whom I remember from my years of watching the sport and following my favourite teams.



I remember Igor Korolev, #22 on the Leafs, who played for us as a third-line centre, a grinder in key moments of the game. He was a terrific skater with solid defensive abilities that locked him a lot of ice time. I remember his curly hair that snuck out beneath his helmet, and his lips were always swollen or cut from the many on-ice battles. Igor was buried in Mt Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto.



I remember Alexander Karpotsev, #52 on the Leafs, who led our team one year in blocked shots when he played alongside Dmitry Yushkevich to form the top defensive pair on those Leaf teams from some ten-plus years ago, around the time, one year, when we battled the Islanders in the first round of the play-offs.



I remember Ruslan Salei, the speedy winger who was the only NHL player on the Belarus national team in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, a team that faced Canada in the semis after knocking Sweden out of the tournament. He left the NHL and signed with Locomotiv only two months before the tragedy.



I remember Pavol Demitra, who broke into the NHL with the St Louis Blues back in the mid-90s. He was always a top offensive player on those Slovak national teams.



I remember Brad McCrimmon, the retired NHL defenseman who was working to become a coach in Detroit but was let go. He then moved to Russia to achieve his goal.