On September 3, 2011, the Kontinental Hockey League’s professional ice hockey team, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, played their final pre-season game at home against KHLTarasov division rival Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod, winning 5 to 2. Arena 2000 fan favorite, right wing Alexander Saidgereyevich Galimov scored the last goal into an empty net to seal the club’s victory. The SRO capacity crowd, some 9,000, gave their team a rousing send off to their regular season opener against another division opponent, Dinamo-Minsk on September 8th.
Aircraft Accident
On September 7, 2011, at 4 P.M. Moscow time, a Yak-Service Yakovlev Yak-42 plane, carrying the players and coaching staff of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, crashed. According to eyewitnesses, during its take off the aircraft ran off the runway, then failed to gain altitude, struck a tower mast, burst into flames, broke into two, and crashed a mile or so from Tunoshna Airport. Russian Deputy Transport Minister Valery Okulov stated the aircraft was scheduled for a full service overhaul at year’s end.
On September 10th, memorial services for the players were held in Arena 2000, attended by thousands, including Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. The next day, Russian President Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev ordered the grounding of the airline's flights. Ten days later, Yak-Service had its operating license suspended. The Interstate Aviation Committee [MAK], in accordance with Russian legislation, announced an investigation into the circumstances of the accident.
In a press release MAK commented that pilot error and mechanical malfunction were considered the most likely causes for the crash. However, the pilots, Captain Andrei Solontsev and First Officer Sergei Zhuralev, were highly experienced and preliminary analysis of the flight recorders indicated that the plane's engines were functioning until "collision with obstacles."
An unofficial report circulated that Captain Solontsev had turned over steering to the co-pilot Zhuralev before take-off, as he was feeling "unwell". As it’s the commander's duty to release the aircraft’s parking brake, the co-pilot may have not have been aware that it had not been done, or forgotten to do so. At a press conference, Deputy Minister Okulov said such “theories” were unsubstantiated.
The aircraft manifest listed 8 crew members and 37 passengers. Of the 45 on board, 43 died at the scene. Of the two rescued, Sasha Galimov died 5 days later in hospital, and only the flight engineer Sizov survived.
According to the lone survivor Sizov, no problems were noted in the preparation for the flight, and the plane had no problems on its previous flight. In addition, Sizov described the distribution of persons and luggage on the plane. Lokomotiv's coaches were in the first cabin, players in the second cabin, and the club’s luggage was carried in the rear luggage compartment of the plane.
The Team
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, one of the top teams in the KHL and originally organized in 1959, won Russian Open Championships in 1997, 2002 and 2003, and were finalists in 2008 and 2009. The name of the team and its nicknames “Loko” and “Railwaymen” are derived from its owner, Russian Railways, the Russian Federation's national railroad operator.
Among the dead were Locomotiv players Pavol Demitra, the NHL’s Lady Byng Trophy winner in 2000, Stefan Liv, the 2006 Swedish Olympic and World Champions’ goaltender, Jan Marek and Karel Rachunek, members of the 2010 Czech Republic World Champions, Josef Vacicek of the 2005 Czech Republic World Champions and 2006 NHL Stanley Cup Champion Carolina Hurricanes, assistant coach Alexander Karpovtsev of the 1993 Russian World Champions and 1994 NHL Stanley Cup Champion New York Rangers, and head coach Brad McCrimmon of the 1989 NHL Stanley Cup Champion Calgary Flames.
Due to the disaster, the club had no choice but to cancel the rest of the team’s 2011–12 KHL season. The league also suspended its season-opening game, which was already in progress at the time of the crash, and postponed the start of the season for one week. The KHL had announced a disaster draft would be held in order for the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl club to compete in 2011-12 but in the end the team opted out of the league for one season.
Demanding Duty
When I read the news, my own rapport with Russia was instantly recalled. As a second generation Russian American and an ex-hockey player, I immediately recollected my relationship with one of the former Soviet Union’s greatest heroes and legends, Viacheslav Alexandrovich Fetisov, known to his family, fans and friends as “Slava”. To me he's a man that's truly one in a trillion. From the first time I watched him playing defense like no one else, to the last time I saw him in Moscow as Putin’s Minister of Physical Education, it was apparent, if not obvious, Slava Fetisov was a natural born leader of men.
Born in 1958, Slava had been the Captain of the Central Red Army and Soviet national teams that won a pair of Olympic gold medals and then went on to star with the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings who won two back-to-back Stanley Cups. Upon retirement, he returned to Russia at Putin’s request and served as Russia's sports czar from 2002 to 2008. Currently, he is a member of the upper house of the Federal Assembly of Russia and a Director of the World Anti-Doping Agency Athletes Committee. Presently, he is also President of the professional Russian hockey club HC CSKA Moscow of the Kontinental Hockey League [KHL] as well as carrying out the duties and responsibilities of Chairman of the league’s Board of Directors.
For reasons readers shall soon see, Slava Fetisov, is uniquely qualified to deal with the terrible and tragic air crash. He knows that there are two struggles in life, the struggle to survive and the struggle to succeed. That he chooses to do it in the traditional Russian way - by sacrificing and suffering, one cannot help but be reminded of what all the Russian people know to be true - Russians truly treasure their tragedies.
“For the first time in my life, I had trouble entering an ice arena. It’s an inexplicable tragedy. It will be complicated, it will be difficult, and we do not yet know everything that we need to do, but it is absolutely sure, Lokomotiv will play again…Lokomotiv will be reborn, it has to continue playing in the league...This says a lot about the solidarity of players and the tradition of ice hockey”.
It wasn’t the first time, however, that Fetisov has dealt with tragedy. In June 1985, Fetisov was the driver when a car accident occurred which killed his 18-year-old passenger, his younger brother Anatoly, a highly regarded prospect himself and his teammate on the Central Red Army team within the HC CSKA Moscow system.
“In every respect, it was so trying, physically, psychologically…My parents helped me. They said that I should start playing again right away and live for two people - for myself and for my brother who died”.
If anyone has the right to speak his mind about the Soviet regime, it’s Slava Fetisov. Despite assisting in winning two gold Olympic medals for his country and deservedly being a recipient of the Order of Lenin, he spent the 1980s being denied permission to play in the National Hockey League as he had been promised. Finally he decided to sue the government in a Soviet court for the freedom he felt he had earned. As a result and as such, he was threatened by the powers that be then and his superiors with exile to Siberia and harassed by henchmen from the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, or KGB.
“The Soviet minister of defense tried to scare me, demanding that I apologize for asking to leave. He gave me an ultimatum - 'Apologize or we will make life very difficult for you.' I faced a lot of intimidation. It was the toughest time of my life, but I finally won. I was the first Russian to sign with the NHL, and I'm proud to say that not only hockey players followed me, the door opened for people in every profession”.
Finally, in 1989, Mikhail Sergeyvich Gorbachev allowed Slava Fetisov to leave the country and live his dream of playing in the NHL. Then tragedy struck again. After a party celebrating the first of two Stanley Cup wins with the Detroit Red WIngs, Fetisov, this time as a passenger in a limousine, was involved in another accident when the limo's driver lost control of the vehicle and hit a tree in the Detroit suburbs. Though Fetisov sustained only minor injuries, teammate Vladimir Konstantinov and team masseur Sergei Mnatsakanov suffered serious head trauma that ended their careers and very nearly took their lives.
"Terrible thing that at time of triumph. I couldn't believe it then and can't today".
After Fetisov retired at the turn of the century, Russian Federation President Putin reached out to him with a request to return to Russia.
"I couldn't say no to the people of Russia. People who raised me, who gave me education - how can you deny them? How are you going to be mad at the Russian people?".
However, he was to discover not all the powers that be were happy with his historic homecoming.
"I don't want to get into details, but everything I tried to do, they tried to sabotage. I was fighting for freedom and they still won't forget me. It was a victory against a whole system, it was not easy. I fought for everything I have in hockey. I also won the biggest fight away from hockey. That was the fight against communism, the fight for freedom of choices".
Then in recognition of his specialness on ice, Fetisov was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
“I wanted to give everything I have to the game because it's been good to me for such a long time…I have achieved everything I dreamed of in my childhood".
So what does Fetisov see for the future of the sport he loves and that loved him back for so long.
“The main competition would be champions of the KHL and NHL playing for the Super Cup. That’s my vision”.
While Slava Fetisov may have been a trailblazer in his own time, he wasn’t happy with the New York Rangers’ 2009 draft pick, 22 year old defenseman, Mikhail Pashnin, who considered jumping ship, so to speak, to play for the NHL’s New York Rangers this fall.
“Sometimes hockey players listen to the entirely wrong people. Pashnin had a very good season, but nobody would argue that he doesn’t still have far to grow. I’m sure that one or two more years in Russia would bring him much greater benefit. The chances of him making the Rangers main roster are extremely small. And I don’t think that a season in the AHL will bring him more benefit than a season in the KHL. We tried to explain to Mikhail that he was making a mistake, but we couldn’t change his mind”.
Then overnight Pashnin announced he’d decided not to join the Rangers just yet, and instead, right after a couple of Fetisov’s well-chosen, choice remarks were made public, extended his contract with CSKA Moscow of the KHL for two more years. It's certainly no coincidence to me. After all, Slava Fetisov is not a man who accepts no for an answer.
Sources:
* Barry, Ellen & Kramer, Andrew E., Crash Wipes Out Elite Russian Hockey Team, Killing Several Veterans of the NHL © The New York Times September 7, 2011.
* Author also acknowledges aircraft accident accounts at http://khl.ru & http://russiaprofile.ru
Rick Stelnick - Rick Stelnick is a superannuated political scientist, crime historian and historical detective.
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