The Heartbreaking Hockey Funeral For Lokomotiv Yaroslavl

The 37 members of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl who died in Wednesday's plane crash were on their way to Minsk to open the KHL season. The opening of the season has been pushed back to Monday, but all of Dynamo Minsk's tickets had been sold. Rather than leave the arena dark and emphasize the void the disaster has left, Dynamo and the league decided to mourn and remember the only way hockey knows how: on the ice.

A hockey funeral was held at Minsk Arena, where 15,000 fans including league officials and politicians came to watch Dynamo take the ice opposite photos of the lost Lokomotiv players and coaches. As an orchestra played a requiem, Dynamo players took turns putting pucks into their own empty net, as the names of the Lokomotiv dead were read out.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered an urgent overhaul of the country's aviation industry, as it emerges that the downed plane's black box may be too wet to examine. Authorities believe they know what caused the crash, with fingers being pointed at contaminated gasoline.

Video: Dynamo Minsk's hockey funeral for Lokomotiv crash victims [Puck Daddy]