Lokomotiv Yaroslavl

Hockey Club Lokomotiv (ХК Локомотив, Locomotive HC), also known as Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, is a Russian professional ice hockey team, based in the city of Yaroslavl, playing in the top level Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). The name of the team is derived from its owner, Russian Railways, the national railroad operator.

On 7 September 2011, a plane carrying the team to a game in Minsk crashed shortly after takeoff, killing all of the team's roster (except forward Maxim Zyuzyakin, who was not on the flight), all coaching staff (except goaltending coach Jorma Valtonen, not on the flight) and four players from the Loko 9 juniors squad of the Minor Hockey League (MHL) The tragedy forced Lokomotiv Yaroslavl to cancel their participation in the 2011–12 KHL season.

History
The team has been known previously by several different names:


 * YaMZ Yaroslavl (1959–1963)
 * Trud Yaroslavl (1963–1964)
 * Motor Yaroslavl (1964–1965)
 * Torpedo Yaroslavl (1965–2000)
 * Lokomotiv Yaroslavl (2000–present)

The team generally played in the Second League of the Class "A" group during the Soviet era, being promoted to the First League of Class "A" for the 1983–84 season. Known as Torpedo Yaroslavl at that time, the team enjoyed moderate success under head coach Sergei Alekseyevich Nikolaev. Never a powerful club during the Soviet era, the team became a consistent winner with the creation of the Russian Superleague (RSL) following the collapse of the Soviet Union, winning their first RSL championship in 1997 under coach Petr Vorobiev. The club moved from Avtodizel Arena to the new Arena 2000 early in the 2001–02 season, and won consecutive league championships in 2002 and 2003 under Czech head coach Vladimír Vujtek, Sr. Vujtek left the club after the 2002–03 season for a lucrative contract offer from rival Ak Bars Kazan. Lokomotiv have not been able to replicate their success since that time, but remained a perennial contender in the RSL and the later KHL.

2011 plane crash
On 7 September 2011, the Lokomotiv club was to travel to Minsk for their first game of the 2011–12 KHL season when the airplane they were in crashed in a botched take-off from [unoshna Airport. Of the 45 passengers and crew on board, only flight engineer Alexander Sizov and 26-year-old Lokomotiv forward Alexander Galimov survived the initial crash. Galimov, who had been with the team since 2004, was conscious and had burns to 90 percent of his body, but died five days later in a hospital in Moscow.

Prior to the crash, the team played nine pre-season games, finishing with a 7–2 record. On 3 September, in Lokomotiv's last pre-season game, at home against Torpedo, Galimov scored the team's last pre-crash goal in their 5-2 victory.

In the aftermaths of the crash, KHL president Alexander Medvedev announced that a disaster draft would be held to allow Lokomotiv Yaroslavl to ice a team for the 2011-2012 season. However, on 10 September 2011, the team announced its intention not to participate in the 2011-2012 KHL season, opting to play in the Russian Major League (VHL) for one season before returning to the KHL. Former coach Petr Vorobiev returned to the team as its head coach for the VHL season.

This is the second plane accident in Russia involving a hockey team; in 1950, the entire VVS Moscow team were killed in an air disaster near Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg).

Champions
Russian Superleague (3): 1997, 2002, 2003

Runners-up
Gagarin Cup (1): 2009 Russian Superleague (1): 2008 Russian Superleague (3): 1998, 1999, 2005 IIHF Continental Cup (1): 2003 Spengler Cup (1): 2003

Season-by-season record
Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime/Shootout Losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against