MARQUETTE -- A plane carrying a Russian Kontinental Hockey League team crashed, killing at least 43 people.  The Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team was traveling from Yaroslav to Minsk to open the regular season Wednesday.

The private jet slammed into a riverbank moments after takeoff near Tunoshna.  The weather was sunny and clear at the time, but Russian media reports say the plane struggled to gain altitude, then hit a signal tower.

NMU Hockey Coach Walt Kyle knew two of the people on the plane, head coach Brad McCrimmon and Ruslan Salei, who both had ties with the Detroit Red Wings.

"Brad McCrimmon is a guy who was an assistant coach in the National Hockey League when I was an assistant," says Kyle.  "I knew him.  His nephew, Mickey McCrimmon, played here at Northern for a couple years.  Certainly we used Brad as a reference when we recruited Mickey.  I can tell you that they have a great hockey family, and it's certainly a real tradegy to that family to lose Brad."

"Another connection I have is Ruslan Salei who played with the Wings last season.  I coached him in his rookie season with Anaheim.  It's real tough.  Prayers go out to all the families of those guys."

Another familiar name to hockey fans who died in the crash was Slovakian national team captain, Vancouver and Saint Louis veteran, Pavol Demitra.

More than 2,000 fans gathered outside the team's arena to pay their respects.