The famous Russian ice hockey team went through a lot of ups and downs before they received a dark shock: almost all of its members were killed by a plane crash.

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl is a professional Russian ice hockey team competing in the Continental Hockey League (KHL)-one of the top leagues in Europe. 

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl is named after the team-owned organization of the Russian National Railway Company. This means a future-oriented train and the squad is called “Loko” or “Railwaymen.” This means a squad emblem.

The team was formed in 1949 with the original name of the Yaroslavl lokomotiv. Then gradually changed to Spartak Yaroslavl, Khimik Yaroslavl, HC YMZ Yaroslavl, Trud Yaroslavl, Motor Yaroslavl, Torpedo Yaroslavl before returning to the original name in 2000. 

The current team plays at the 2000 Lokomotive Arena, with a capacity of approximately 9,046 people. Loko ‘s uniform has three colors of red, white and blue as the typical color of the Russian flag.

The culmination of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ‘s performance was his three-time national championship in the years 1996-1997, 2001-2002 and 202-2003. They also won twice in a row the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 KHL runner-up seasons. Besides that, there were four third finishes in the Russian championships as well as in the KHL-including last season.

At a plane crash, on the way to Minsk for the opening season, the whole team of Loko was killed on 7 September 2011. A few minutes before the start the old Yak-42 failed and sank on the Volga river, 300 km north-east of Moscow. 43 people, including 36 players and coaching staff from Loko, have been killed.Before the tragedy, Loko had played nine preseason warm-ups, winning 7 and losing 2. The last match they played was the 3rd of September, beating Torpedo 5-2 at home. Galimov was the final scorer of the Loko match.