Forward Branko Radivojevic has emphatically backed the decision to hold two Euro Challenge games between his Slovakia team and Russia at the arena of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, whose entire roster perished in September's air disaster.
After Russia won the first match 2-1 on Friday, the emotional former NHL star applauded organizers for bringing quality hockey to a bereaved town.
"It was a right thing to do because they needed to see a high-level hockey," Radivojevic said. "The match made the fans feel better and they even started performing the Mexican wave, which I liked very much."
The second match is later Saturday.
Radivojevic, formerly of the Phoenix Coyotes, the Philadelphia Flyers and the Minnesota Wild, admitted the Arena 2000 atmosphere and pre-match moment of silence was "very hard to bear."
"It was especially difficult when the Loko players' pictures appeared on the screen," said Radivojevic. "Besides I was still bearing in my mind our visit to their graves early that morning."
The Euro Ice Hockey Challenge is a series of matches, organized during the international breaks with the games played in different European countries and sometimes outside the continent.
Russian plays Latvia in Riga next week.
A Yak-42 chartered by Lokomotiv crashed just after takeoff as the team was heading to Belarus for its season-opener against Dinamo Minsk. Among the dead were a slew of former NHL stars and future draft prospects
