The shortest plane flight in hockey, KHL edition

Kontinental Hockey League’s Lokomotiv Yaroslavl's plane went down shortly after take-off, I'm assuming sometime in the last 24 hours as I had not heard of this yesterday around this time. 43 dead, including coach Brad McCrimmon, a Stanley Cup winner with the Calgary Flames, as well as former NHLers Pavol Demitra, Ruslan Salei, and Josef VAsicek. The Devils' prospect Alex Vasyunov was also counted among those who perished.

These posts are delicate.




On one had a tragic loss of life. When a co-worker informed me about this at work today I did, in actuality, stop and reflect on how terrible this was, knowing only that Demitra was on the team, as only former Canucks register in the brains of Vancouver fans.

On the other hand, this is The Dump, and there is a standard that contributors must pindown, no matter how lowly.



You may ask yourselves, "How could this happen?". The easy answer: "It's the KHL idiot". Any longtime reader would be privy to prior posts ridiculing Russia's sporting answer to America's XFL. Though longer lasting that the aforementioned motley assembly of big league cast-offs and never-weres, the KHL trumped the XFL in its pittance to players. Players forced to survive solely on their love for the game, daily gruel rations and whatever banana peels fans deemed them worthy of. And now the travel accommodations take center stage as an upcoming satellite hot-stove topic.



But I digress. Dead horses and 18 hole Doc Marlins aside, there is far more tragedy in this turn of events than the recent "Tough Guy Trio" that has garnered so much sports media fervor. Though details remain few surrounding those deaths, there is an aspect of self-selection involved, though the argument for peer-expectations does pose some validity. To me there is a difference between dying after stepping aboard a bus to get to work and getting off work and stepping in front of it.

Well, you can sort of see how the Dump can only hide its ugly head in the snow for so long before the urge to rear becomes to much to contain.

So as an RIP I have myself a bottle of Russian Standard Vodka, of which I am now imbibing. It's really not much of a send off, but damn is it tasty.


For juxtaposition's sake:

If the plane had gone down in the mountains of Minsk, at least Alex Galimov having to go "Alive" on it would have trumped the in-flight meal.


It's The Dump. You weren't gonna get off that easy.

RIP Flight YAk-42.