That K.H.L. Crash in September Cut Into Russia's Hockey Heart

The New York Times recently echoed that thinking with a thorough piece by Michael Schwirtz about the aftereffects on the still-young Kontinental Hockey League and, by extension, on Russia’s psyche. The K.H.L. aims to be Russia’s answer to the N.H.L., a legitimate world league that can compete for international talent and, most important, give top Russian players a reason to remain at home. Hockey was once a game that the Soviet superpower dominated like no other country; the Big Red Machine medaled nine times the 11 Olympics during the Cold War, with seven of those gold. For good measure, the Unified Team won gold in Alberta Albertville, France, in 1992 following the dissolution of the Soviet empire.

The Russian national game since has fallen on harder days. The Times piece charts the sport’s stark decline and shaky revival as emblematic of the country at large:

"Hockey, and sports in general, succumbed to the poverty and gangsterism that overtook much of Russia in the 1990s. Clubs became vehicles for corruption. Several athletic officials died in apparent contract killings. … The creation of the K.H.L., led by Alexander Medvedev, the director of the export arm of Gazprom, the state energy giant, was one of many new projects meant to symbolize a return to greatness. [Vladimir] Putin, who will probably return to the presidency next year, stated frankly that the league should be used as an instrument of foreign policy."

Now in its fourth season, the league stretches across a mind-blowing nine time zones in five countries. Teams have come and gone; some fail to pay their players on time. It’s painfully top-heavy, with the best players going overwhelmingly to the richest quarter of the league. And the path to guaranteeing safer flights, which apparently is such a dire problem in Russia that President Dmitry Medvedev has suggested scrapping any Soviet-era planes still in use. Therein, the rub: For all that the K.H.L.’s rise has meant for Russian self-regard as a world force on and off the ice, the Lokomotiv crash contradicts, implying that the country still lags in basic first-world concerns as it tries to fly outdated soup cans, in a country where corruption is the very fabric of government and regulation.

Losing an entire team in the country’s favorite sport must take a bite out of that Putin-era confidence, to say nothing of the pall it casts over the remaining league members. One team coach quoted by the Times acknowledged that his players were nervous, and met with a flight crew in advance of traveling in the same model plane, a Soviet-era Yak 42, that Lokomotiv was riding. But Jaromir Jagr, who played three seasons in the K.H.L., also told the paper: “You have a choice to make $200,000 here in the minors, or they’re going to pay you a million cash. Money talks.” Also, it’s great stomping grounds for goons.

Meanwhile the lone survivor of the Lokomotiv crash, who happened to be the flight engineer, has met with journalists for the first time and suggested strongly (as have other investigators) that pilot error probably led to the crash. You gotta figure the engineer would point to the cockpit rather than at, say, mechanical problems. But then, if the engineer actually gets on the plane, that has to be considered a reliable endorsement of his own work.

As for the disaster itself, Alexander Sizov, who is 52, said in the interview that the plane didn’t lift off immediately. Then:

"“I quickly realized that we were on unpaved ground. The plane started falling shortly after takeoff, and it was clear that we were going to crash. On impact, everything started flying. Something hit me hard, that’s why my left side is all busted up. Once in the water, I honestly didn’t see or notice anything around — not the fires, not the plane, nothing.”"