After a private jet carrying the entire Lokomotivs team (equivalent to an NHL team in Russia) crashed in western Russia last week, the Kontinental Hockey League was unsure of what to do with the team’s season. There was discussion of holding a draft to recruit one or two members from every other KHL team to play the remainder of the year; but that didn’t seem necessary as many players volunteered to play for the team. Now, all options have been put on hold as the KHL has decided that the Lokomotivs will not play in the KHL this year.

The President of the KHL was the one to announce that the Lokomotivs would not be playing this year, but did confirm that the team would be back to play in the 2012 — 2013 season. The team’s main sponsor, Russian Railroads, made a statement shortly following the announcement, saying that team is not just “players and hockey sticks, but also spirit. And that spirit will take some time to rebuild.”

It was an extremely hard weekend for friends and loved ones of the team. A memorial service was held this past Saturday at the Arena-2000, the home arena of the Lokomotivs. Over 100,000 people attended, forcing the service to be extended for a few hours.

Sadly, the only player who survived the plane crash, Alexander Galimov, died on Monday in the hospital after being in “grave condition” since Wednesday’s crash. Galimov was being treated for burns at the Vishnevsky Surgery Institute as he had burns covering 80% of his body.

The incident is one of many that has Russian government officials looking into making complete overhauls to both their air and water transportation systems.