Russian Ice Hockey Tragedy

The entire Lokomotive Russian hockey club was wiped out this past week in a plane crash.

If your sports fan, it's a big one.

Lokomotiv is a popular KHL team which at the time of the crash had a few former NHLers on its roster. I was stunned to hear the names Brad McCrimmon - who I watched play when he was with the Flyers back in the 1980s - Pavol Demitra (who was an excellent player), Karl Rachunek and Ruslan Salei. It may sound silly, but Demitra in particular was a fixture in keeper hockey pools; I even had him on my team for a while.

It's great the story watching the league rally around Lokomotiv in an effort to get its operatins going. Players from around the world are offering their services including Dynamo player Alexei Yashin.

The tragedy got me thinking of other sports disasters. Most come from the soccer ranks:

-First among them was the Superga air disaster in 1949 when the great Torino soccer club was wiped out on a journey back from Lisbon. Before the glorious and glamorous dominance of Italian soccer with Juventus, the story goes, there was Torino. The club had 10 players ( including the great Valentino Mazzola (father to Sandro who would also have a prominent career)  representing the Italian national team at the time of the crash thus setting the program it back a decade or more.

-In 1958, a group of lads known as "Busby Babes" (called such because they were scouted and trained for the great Manchester United manager Matt Busby) lost their lives on a flight back from Munich. 23 of the 38 passengers (including eight young players) died. Legenday player Bobby Charlton survived the accident.

-In 1993, 30 people were killed, including 18 Zambian soccer players. They're memorialized at a place known as "Heroes" acres.

Other disasters include:

-Heysel Disaster just before an epic European Cup final between Juventus and Liverpool.

-One of the most deadliest in British soccer history was the Hillsborough disaster.

- U.S. figure skating team 1961.

- And the massacre of Israeli athlete's at the Munich games in 1972.

Others you know about?