RUSSIA: Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team player Maxim Zyuzyakin who missed plane which crashed and killed his teammates, says he feels like he lost his extended family.

Record ID: 758798

  • Title: RUSSIA: Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team player Maxim Zyuzyakin who missed plane which crashed and killed his teammates, says he feels like he lost his extended family.
  • Date: 10th September 2011
  • Summary: YAROSLAVL, RUSSIA (SEPTEMBER 8, 2011) (REUTERS) LOKOMOTIV YAROSLAVL ICE HOCKEY STADIUM PEOPLE LAYING FLOWERS AT STADIUM FLOWERS ON GROUND PEOPLE MOURNING FANS LAYING FLOWERS MOURNERS GATHERING AT STADIUM
  • Embargoed: 25th September 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Russian Federation
  • Country: Russia
  • Topics: Accidents,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA841ECAYTJC9T34BE2HQT6M9WK
  • Story Text: 2O-year-old Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team player Maxim Zyuzakin was the sole main squad member who didn't get on the plane which crashed killing 36 of his teammates, earlier this week.
    Maxim said on Thursday (September 8) his coach told him to stay at home to play a game for the club's youth squad and to join the main team in Moscow later and so he escaped the fatal flight.
    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 (September 7), shortly after takeoff from the airport outside Yaroslavl, 250 km (150 miles) north of Moscow Only one of the 37 players and team officials on board survived the disaster, another survivor was a crew member, both were still in hospital in critical condition on Friday (September 9).
    Lokomotiv fans continued to bring flowers, club scarves and ice hockey shirts to the stadium in Yaroslavl to commemorate the victims.
    Maxim told reporters the loss was a big tragedy for him as if he lost his big family.
    "A hockey team is like a family for a hockey player. I lost a family of forty people, which I knew for such a long time, who I was so close to and who were my good friends. It's very hard ," he said.
    Maxim said he thought it would be wrong to say he is lucky, after he lost dozens of his friends.
    "This is such a tragedy for forty of my friends' families. I am not thinking that I was lucky, that actually I could have flown there as well. I simply don't think about it," Maxim added.
    Among the 43 people who died in the crash, 36 were Locomotiv players and officials, among them 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.
    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.
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