Lokomotiv's Gagarin Cup victory offers Yaroslavl a heap of healing
Fourteen years after a plane crash claimed the lives of the team members onboard, the city is enjoying its first KHL championship
Dmitri Simashev was just 6 years old when Yak-Service charter flight 9633 crashed shortly after takeoff on its way to Minsk, Belarus. Forty-four of the 45 people aboard died as a result of the crash, including all the members of the Yaroslavl Lokomotov hockey team who were headed to their 2011-12 season opener.
"It was really a horrible disaster for the whole city," Simashev said. "It was a really strong team; a really good team."
Nearly fourteen years after that tragedy on Sept. 7, 2011, Simashev helped hand a huge dose of healing to the city that raised him. On May 21, Lokomotiv won its first Gagarin Cup as Kontinental Hockey League champions by defeating Chelyabinsk Traktor in five games in the finals. A couple days after raising the Cup, the entire team took that trophy to the memorial that sits just outside Arena 2000 — the one that honors the team's and the city's fallen comrades.
"It was a difficult moment for all of us," Simashev said. "We didn't really say anything. We were just quiet and watched."
The hockey community is a tightly knit one by nature, but the Yaroslavl tragedy touched the entire hockey world, including several people with ties to Arizona.
Former Coyotes Keith Tkachuk and Tyson Nash lost good friend and former St. Louis Blues teammate Pavol Demitra in that crash.
Former Coyotes assistant coach Dave King was Lokomotiv's head coach in 2013-14, and 2014-15, and still serves as an advisor to the team. King lost several friends and associates including Yaroslavl assistant coach Igor Korolev, who had been King’s assistant coach with Magnitogorsk Metallurg on a previous stint in the KHL before King joined Dave Tippett's staff in Arizona in 2009.
Former Coyotes coach and player Rick Tocchet lost good friend and former Philadelphia Flyers teammate Brad McCrimmon, who was in his first year as Lokomotiv’s head coach after leaving the Detroit Red Wings bench where he had been an assistant coach for three years.
“When he was leaving Detroit, he even asked if I wanted to come over and help out,” said Tocchet, who had just lost his job as the head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning the previous season when new owner Jeff Vinik took over. “If Brad had called me and said, ‘Listen, I really need your help,’ I would have been out there. I wouldn’t have done it for many guys, but for Brad McCrimmon, absolutely.”
Former Coyotes and current Dallas Stars defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin was born in Moscow, but when KHL president Alexander Medvedev mandated a disaster draft to repopulate Lokomotiv’s roster after the crash, every KHL team made three players available to create a pool of players from which Lokomotiv could select its roster to play in the VHL (Russia’ second-highest league) for one season before returning to the KHL. Lyubushkin was one of the players selected.
“When I arrived in Yaroslavl, I lived on the base of the team,” Lyubushkin said. “It was a sad time for the city and the people because every inhabitant of the city was a fan of Lokomotiv. Almost every car had stickers with the date and memory of the tragedy. It was difficult to put on the jersey of the team because you immediately remembered what happened. Coaches and players tried not to talk about it, but it was necessary to play for the city, for the fans, and for those guys who died in the plane crash.”
When Lokomotiv won the Gagarin Cup last month, Lyubushkin, who was in the midst of the NHL's Western Conference Final against the Edmonton Oilers, phoned home to Russia.
"I have a lot of friends in this team," Lyubushkin said via email. "I called them and congratulated them on their big victory! I’m very happy and proud for the team, my friends and for this city."
Russian cities have a deep connection to their teams because of the development model.
"Every KHL team has their development process in the city," King said. "They have professional coaches working with kids at the entry level all the way up. They have all the junior teams. They have a farm club, and then they have the elite team so a lot of players on each team in the KHL — not all of them, but a lot of their players — are locally developed so there is a real deep connection to the team because the kids grew up playing there.
"Russian cities have basketball and they have football (soccer) and other sports, but the ice hockey team has always been the favorite in Yaroslavl. They have an NHL style rink that's full every night. The community really feels a part of this team. It's very likely, when people are watching games, that they know the players personally and have seen them grow up."
That was the case with Simashev and fellow Utah draft pick Daniil But, who both officially signed with the Mammoth on May 28. Simashev was born in Kostroma, a little more than an hour northeast of Yaroslavl. He has been with the program since 2016 when he was 11 years old. He said the connection to the city and its people is palpable.
"I can sit in a restaurant and one guy will come up to me and say, 'I think you played really well yesterday, but I think in your third year you could shoot more; you could score more,'" Simashev said, laughing. "I just say, 'I know, thank you.'
"A lot of guys that come here from Europe and from North America say Yaroslavl is like the Montréal of the KHL. The fans are crazy, they know hockey and they can talk to you about hockey. They love our team."
King and his wife, Linda, have a special connection to the city, having arrived there shortly after the tragedy.
"The tragedy is eternal and the memories of it are never going to end," said King, who spoke with Lokomotiv associate coach Dmitri Yushkevich right after the team won the Cup. "You can't endure a plane crash where 37 of your people pass and not have that permanently affect your mind and your thoughts.
"But for the city and for the organization, this is a terrific accomplishment. They got to the final last year and lost, but this year, they've done it. It's almost euphoria there and I think it's well deserved. They've really worked hard at it. The president of the team, Yuri Yakovlev, was able to put it back together and build it with good staff and good people, and they've been very competitive the last few years. This is a great victory for Yaroslavl."
Simashev was happy to be a part of it before departing for the NHL.
"It's still difficult for the city but at least we can say, 'We did it for you guys,'" he said. "This was so important for Yaroslavl."
Excerpts of this story first appeared in a story I published on Sept. 7, 2021; 10 years to the day after the crash.
Very good article of a terrible tragedy. I also remember a tragedy in your sport where a bus was torn in half, in college football there was Witchita State and a Marshall around the same time.
I was stationed at Holloman AFB the day the Evansville University basketball teams plane crashed, a high school teammate of mine was auto be on that plane but he was injured and they left him at home.
Then the Fonzie of our school who was run over by a semi truck when he got off his Honda SL-350 at 1:30am on the side of the highway..
He coulda been a great athlete.
All death is a tragedy but to we who dedicated ourselves to playing sports, it seems particularly tragic to “ an athlete dying young”
Great article, Craig! I'll gladly pay a subscription to get regular Mammoth content from you!