Igor Korolev’s funeral will be held in Toronto on Sunday
Posted September 15, 2011 11:34 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A public viewing and private funeral will be held Sunday in Toronto for former Leaf player Igor Korolev, who died in last week’s plane crash in Russia.
The viewing and service will be held at the Mount Pleasant cemetery from 10 a.m. to noon.
Korolev, who lived in North York, leaves behind his wife and two daughters.
A Russian jet carrying the Lokomotiv hockey team crashed Sept. 7 in sunny weather immediately after leaving an airport near the city of Yaroslavl, about 240 kilometres northeast of Moscow.
Lokomotiv coach Brad McCrimmon, a native of Plenty, Sask., also died in the crash and he will be laid to rest Saturday at a service in the Detroit suburb of Farmington.
The crash killed the entire team of hockey players, including Alexander Galimov, who survived but later died of the burns that covered 90 per cent of his body.
The hockey team featured several top European players and former NHL stars, including Slovakian forward and national team captain Pavol Demitra, who played in the NHL for the St. Louis Blues and the Vancouver Canucks.
Other big names included Czech defenceman Karel Rachunek, Russian defencemen Ruslan Salei and Karlis Skrastins and Swedish goalie Stefan Liv.
The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) is an international club league that pits together teams from Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Slovakia.
Lokomotiv was a three-time Russian League champion in 1997, 2002-2003. It took bronze last season.
With files from The Associated Press
