May 15 (RIA Novosti) – Two years after losing nearly all its players and coaches in a plane crash, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl of Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) is making a quiet comeback in an unlikely place: the tiny town of Manheim, Pennsylvania, in the heart of America’s Amish country, where members of a strict religious sect that shuns modern conveniences reside.
Around 20 hockey players, some as young as 17, work out six days a week at a training facility in the town of fewer than 5,000 people.
The young players were sent to Manheim to be put through tough training regimens at the Power Train fitness center by their American coach Tom Rowe, a former National Hockey League (NHL) player and assistant coach for the Carolina Hurricanes, who was recruited last year to rebuild the devastated Lokomotiv franchise.
“They’re here looking to get an edge, to get faster and stronger, to learn about nutrition and recovery,” Steve Saunders, the founder and president of Power Train, who is overseeing the young skaters’ training, told RIA Novosti.
“A lot of guys in their system are young because of the accident and they’re looking for an edge on the other teams in the KHL,” he said.
Half of the 18 players training in Manheim played for Lokomotiv last season, while the other half were playing in the junior league.
“They’re here for strength and lifting exercises in the morning, and then they’re back in the afternoon, and we do running with them,” a sports performance coach at Power Train, who asked not to be named, told RIA Novosti.
The Lokomotiv players are based in the tiny town, surrounded by rolling fields in Amish country, in part because Manheim’s training facility is the biggest of nine Power Train gyms and able to take large groups.
But being in the tranquility of Manheim also allows the team to heal from the still-ripe memories of the plane crash in September 2011 that killed 44 people, including 37 Lokomotiv players, coaches and support staff, and sucked the spirit out of the city of Yaroslavl, which lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kotorosl rivers, around 155 miles (250 kilometers) northeast of Moscow.
The plane crashed shortly after takeoff into the bank of a Volga River tributary outside Yaroslavl.
The players’ American hosts are also making sure that the young Russians enjoy the local hockey scenery and other wholesome forms of entertainment.
“We’ve taken them to a Philadelphia Flyers game, they’ve gone to a Hershey Bears game,” said Power Train’s sports performance coach, referring to two Pennsylvania Hockey teams.
“And I’ve personally taken them to Hershey Park,” a large amusement park known for its hair-raising rollercoasters in the Pennsylvania town where Hershey’s chocolate is made, he added.
But the team has not been skating while training in Pennsylvania as it focuses on building strength and explosiveness.
Lokomotiv pulled out of the KHL for the 2011-12 season, following the crash.
Last year, the three-time Kontinental League Champions were back in the KHL, and a new Lokomotiv lineup went on a nine-game winning streak during the season, finishing 34-18, before losing in the first-round of the playoffs.
Trying to find renewed strength in the quite countryside of Manheim, Rowe has been brought on as coach to power the team back to a KHL championship and bring the league’s Gagarin cup back to Yaroslavl.
