Although rivalry and verbal attacks between fans of individual clubs are inherent to team sports, a pair of young supporters of Sweden’s Linköping crossed the boundaries of decency and empathy.
Photo: Smirnov Vladimir / TASS / Profimedia
Portraits of the 38 players and crew who died in September 2011.
The 18-year-olds, who came to cheer on the home team Linköping for the match of the highest Swedish hockey competition against HV71, overdid it.
They provoked and taunted the visiting fans in a disgusting way, showing a photo of goalkeeper Stefan Liv throughout the match.
The Swedish representative, who was born in Poland, died in September 2011 when the plane crashed, in which there were players and the implementation team of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl club.
After one of the greatest sports tragedies in modern history, Liv became an immortal icon of HV71, in which he caught nine seasons.
His jersey was hung under the roof of the home arena, and during the 2011/2012 season, all SHL matches began with a minute’s silence in his honor.
The management of Linköping did not let the incident, which took place at the end of September, go by and tracked down the pair of young men thanks to the camera footage.
The club imposed a severe punishment on them – they will not be able to attend any league matches for the next two years. According to the statutes of the Swedish Hockey Association, Linköping could grant a ban from entering the stadium for 18 to 24 months.
In HV71, they had no understanding for the young men’s gesture. “It’s such stupid and disrespectful behavior that it makes you cry,” said team chief executive Carl-Johan Stalhammar.
“When eight thousand fans come, there are always a few people who don’t have all five together,” added Stalhammar to Swedish television SVT.
Liv also achieved success with the Swedish national team, in whose jersey he became the Olympic champion in 2006 and the world champion.
In 2010, he transferred to the KHL, but on September 7, 2011, tragedy struck. The plane carrying the Lokomotiv team crashed near the city of Yaroslavl.
Of the 45 people on board, only two people survived the fall – Russian forward Alexander Galimov, who died a day later from burns, and flight engineer Alexander B. Sizov, who survived the accident.
Slovakian hockey legend Pavol Demitra and the trio of Czechs Karel Rachůnek, Jan Marek and Josef Vašíček also perished in the plane.
Source: sportweb.pravda.sk
