The black cloud that’s hanging over the hockey world might seem extra dark to Jesse Wallin.
Just a week after losing boyhood friend and former NHL player Wade Belak to suicide, the Red Deer Rebels general manager/head coach was mourning the loss of a man he remembers as a mentor and a genuine, generous human being.
Brad McCrimmon, who was to start his first season as head coach of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl of the Kontinental Hockey League, was among 43 members of the team killed in an airline crash Wednesday. The number of dead included 27 players as well as coaches and team officials.
Nine of the dead had either played or coached in the NHL, including McCrimmon, a long-time assistant coach in the NHL and a man Wallin looked up to as a teenager in North Battleford, Sask. At that time, McCrimmon, the older brother of Brandon Wheat Kings owner and GM Kelly, was winding down an 18-year NHL playing career.
“This hits pretty close to home. Brad was a tremendous human being, a mentor for me when I was growing up,” said Wallin.
“He and Kelly had a cabin at Jackfish Lake near North Battleford and he used to come by and pick up some of us young guys and take us down to the track to train (for the next hockey season).”
McCrimmon also shared the same player agent — Herb Pinder of Saskatoon — with Wallin, whose professional playing career ended in 2003 due to a severe concussion.
“He hooked me up with (Pinder),” said Wallin. “Brad was from the Kindersley (Sask.) area where my mom and dad grew up so we kind of had some family connections. My family had known the McCrimmons for some time.
“I spent a lot of time with him as a teen and I know he was a great resource for a lot of young guys coming through Brandon. Kelly had him at (Wheat Kings) training camp for a lot of years.
“He liked working with the young guys. Here was a guy 15 years into his career and he’d walk into a room, see a young guy sitting in the corner and walk over and start a conversation. That’s just the kind of person he was.
“This is just a tragedy for the hockey world in general . . . just devastating with the amount of lives lost. Nine of them had NHL connections so there’s probably not a guy in the hockey world — current or former — that hasn’t been connected with someone in that accident.”
As much as anything, the stunning accident was a reminder of just how small the hockey community is.
Reaction poured in from all corners.
“Though it occurred thousands of miles away from our home arenas, this tragedy represents a catastrophic loss to the hockey world — including the NHL family, which lost so many fathers, sons, teammates and friends who at one time excelled in our league,” said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. “Our deepest condolences go to the families and loved ones of all who perished.”
In total, team personnel with connections to 10 different countries were claimed in the deadliest accident to strike a professional hockey team in history.
“This is a terrible tragedy for the global ice hockey community with so many nationalities involved,” said International Ice Hockey Federation president Rene Fasel. “Our thoughts and prayers are with family and friends of the victims.
“Despite the substantial air travel of professional hockey teams, our sport has been spared from tragic traffic accidents. But only until now.”
Former NHLers Pavol Demitra, Ruslan Salei, Josef Vasicek, Karel Rachunek, Karlis Skrastins and Alexander Vasyunov were among the players who died along with assistant coaches Alexander Karpovtsev and Igor Korolev, both former NHLers themselves.
Lokomotiv was travelling to Belarus, where it was scheduled to open the KHL regular season against Dynamo Minsk on Thursday night. Taking off under sunny and clear skies, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said the Yak-42 plane crashed immediately after leaving an airport near Yaroslavl.
Safety concerns have been common among North Americans who spent time playing in the KHL in recent years. Many worried about the quality of planes being used by their team.
“You don’t really know how they’ve been maintained or how safe they are,” said Los Angeles-based agent Allan Walsh of Octagon Sports, who has clients in the KHL. “In all reality, I’m shocked something like this hasn’t happened earlier.”
Former NHL defenceman Bryan Muir appeared in 23 games for Dynamo Minsk during the 2008-09 season and recalls travelling on a TU-134A plane that was built in 1962. While some of his Russian teammates were unfazed by its condition, the Winnipeg native never felt completely comfortable.
“We were kind of sitting there going ‘Holy smokes’ because you’re used to North America and the standards and everything that goes along with it,” Muir said in an interview. “I looked at the doorway and there’s this big crack with the aluminum riveted over the top of it.
“I’m just sitting there saying to myself ‘Oh my god’ — just saying a prayer when I walked on the plane every time.”
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl is one of 24 teams in a league which stretches across nine times zones, from Poprad, Slovakia, in the west to Khabarovsk, Russia in the far east.
Free-agent forward Alexei Yashin recently spent two seasons playing in Yaroslavl and was stunned to learn of the news during an on-ice workout with members of the New York Islanders.
“It’s a sad day in the history of hockey, and not just hockey, the whole country,” Yashin told Newsday. “A lot of my friends were on that plane.”
He’s far from alone. Virtually every NHL team issued a statement of condolence as nearly all were touched in some way by the massive loss.
“This is a terrible day for the hockey fraternity,” said former NHLer Keith Tkachuk, a close friend of McCrimmon and Demitra.
Added New Jersey Devils president Lou Lamoriello: “Nothing could prepare the hockey community for the devastating news it received today. (It) has left all of us beyond words.”
The league halted its season opening game between Salavat Yulaev and Atlant during the first period after receiving news of the incident. A statement issued by the KHL called for patience while it decided how best to proceed with the 2011-12 season.
“This is the darkest day in the history of our sport,” said Fasel.
