A plane carrying KHL team Lokomotiv to the city of Minsk crashed into the rivers and took all but 2 people who were on the plane, including crewmen and players. A lot of players who played in the NHL, such as Pavol Demitra, Ruslan Salei, and Josef Vasicek, as well as former Red Wings assistant coach Brad McCrimmon, were lost. This surely is the biggest loss of the summer and it puts more of the grim in the grim offseason that has been circling the NHL.
Most of the players I don't know statistically and such, but I do like Brad McCrimmon because he has been part of the great Red Wings teams in the 2000s. He helped carry them to great playoff victories as an assistant coach and honestly, I thought he was still in the NHL but now he's no longer on this Earth.
This season will definitely be an interesting one considering how many deaths, and this one in particular, will affect what the season will bring to us. Players and coaches are definitely affected already by the coming deaths, like this crash as well as the three players that have recently died. Can they put aside this and be able to produce on the ice like they always have done? Or will this be a hangover that lasts throughout the entire season? And honestly, we don't know. Combine that with the fact that Sidney Crosby is still having post-concussion symptoms and it feels like the season has little relevance so far.
I hope the season will go right on schedule and that players honor their fallen comrades by playing the same style of hockey that they have always known (except no head-hitting, we don't want another high player like Crosby to go out for months) to do. In the meantime, let's get prepared for another hockey season, puckheads. Almost time to drop that first puck.
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