BELARUS: President Alexander Lukashenko attends a memorial concert at a stadium in Minsk where an ice hockey match should have taken place between Dinamo Minsk and the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team

Record ID: 382113

  • Title: BELARUS: President Alexander Lukashenko attends a memorial concert at a stadium in Minsk where an ice hockey match should have taken place between Dinamo Minsk and the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team
  • Date: 9th September 2011
  • Summary: SLATE INFORMATION
  • Embargoed: 24th September 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belarus, Belarus
  • Country: Belarus
  • Topics: Accidents,Sports,Transport
  • Reuters ID: LVAEZD32WMVB0APW5OHOXGB8HKGB
  • Story Text: Belarus authorities hosted a mourning ceremony and memorial concert in Minsk on Thursday (September 8) night to commemorate the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team after nearly its entire squad was killed in a plane crash the day before.
    Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko attended the ceremony with his seven-year-old son Nikolai.
    The Lokomotiv team were en route to play their Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) season opener in the Belarus capital, Minsk when their Yak-42 aircraft crashed on Wednesday shortly after takeoff from the airport outside Yaroslavl, 250 km (150 miles) north of Moscow Among the 43 dead were the team's Canadian coach Brad McCrimmon, Slovakia captain Pavol Demitra and three former world champions from the Czech Republic.
    News of the crash plunged the world of ice hockey into shock and grief. The Lokomotiv squad included former players with the Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings and Florida Panthers -- all members of the NHL.
    During the mourning ceremony, the portraits of all Yaroslavl team members killed in the crash were put on the ice hockey field. The Dinamo Minsk players hit their own net, scoring symbolic goals in the name of each Lokomotiv Yaroslavl player.
    President Lukashenko appeared on the ice together with his son Nikolai, both wearing Belarus national ice hockey team uniforms.
    The president said the death of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team was an immense loss for the world of ice hockey.
    "They (Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team) are with us here today. Regretfully only as their still images. The most terrible thing for us is that they were en route to us to appear at this wonderful arena at this hour. They were flying to us as our best friends, as our brothers," Lukashenko said addressing the fans.
    After a concert, fans chanted 'Loco! Loco!' and laid flowers outside the stadium beneath the Belarussian and Russian flags, which flew at half mast.
    Lokomotiv were the runners up in the KHL's inaugural season in 2008-2009. The club won back to back titles in the old Russian Superleague in 2002 and 2003.
    The death of the Lokomotiv team, of which Alexander Galimov is the sole survivor, is the second time a Russian sporting side has been involved in a fatal plane crash.
    VVS, a Soviet Union club sponsored by the son of dictator Josef Stalin, crashed near the city of Yekaterinburg, then Sverdlovsk, in January 1950 during a journey to play a league match. All 11 players on board the plane died in the crash.
    Russia's top ice hockey teams will provide players to help rebuild the stricken Lokomotiv Yaroslavl club, the chairman of the sport's national league said on Thursday.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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