Russian junior hockey team booted off flight for unruly behaviour
Posted Jan 6, 2011 07:59:03 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It appears the Russian junior hockey team celebrated their stunning gold medal win well into the morning hours.
1310News has learned the entire team was kicked off a plane at the Buffalo, N.Y., airport for unruly behaviour.
Officials from the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport said the team showed up to board a flight home around 6 a.m. and were acting obnoxious.
“And when they got on the plane, they continued to display unruly behaviour, and the crew at that point felt it was necessary, in order to ensure the safe operation of the flight going forward, asked the entire team to leave the plane,” airport spokesperson C. Douglas Hartmayer told 680News.
Police at the airport said that the players appeared to be intoxicated.
If that is the case, they would have been drinking illegally since the legal drinking age in the state of New York is 21.
The team was “sleeping it off” at a hotel Thursday afternoon, a person at the front desk of the Days Hotel near the airport said.
A tired-looking Mikhail Zislis, the team’s media officer, was getting little rest, though.
“I cannot sleep because everybody in Russia is calling me asking me what’s going on,” Zislis told The Associated Press inside the hotel lobby.
He said he didn’t know when the team would be able to leave Buffalo.
“I hope as soon as possible because we want to go back to Russia,” said Zislis, who’d shaved his head after the victory as part of a bet with a player.
Russia’s Orthodox Christmas is Friday.
The group had arrived at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport in time for a 6:10 a.m. flight to Atlanta, but was turned back by the flight crew.
“To ensure the safe operation of the flight, the crew of Flight 1266 denied boarding to 30 passengers who were travelling together and displaying unruly behaviour,” Delta spokeswoman Susan Chana Elliott said. “The passengers are being rebooked on a future flight.”
Coach Valeri Bragin appeared in the hotel lobby about 1:30 p.m. and signed an autograph for a fan at the front desk.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said when asked about the scene at the airport.
He would not say whether players had been drinking.
“They were definitely intoxicated, that’s for sure,” bus driver Curtis Hall, who drove the Russians to the airport, told The Buffalo News. “They were so drunk they had to carry a couple of the guys onto the bus.”
Hall described Russian players honking the bus horn en route to the airport after boarding about 3 a.m. at the Adam’s Mark hotel and having to wait around because one player had trouble exiting the bus.
“I was glad to get rid of them,” he said.
Russia overcame a three-goal deficit in the third period to stun Canada 5-3 in the gold-medal game Wednesday night. It was the country’s first gold medal since 2003.
An hour and a half after the upset win, several Russian coaches and trainers came on the ice — one holding a bottle of what appeared to be alcohol and others sipping from paper cups — to pose for pictures in front of the scoreboard that had been lowered to ice level after the game.
The players, all 20 years old or younger, had left the ice, though some of them were later spotted partying and drinking with other members of the Russian contingent at the bar in their hotel. They celebrated with frequent chants of ”Beat Canada!” and ”Russia! Russia!”
Buffalo Niagara International Airport spokesman C. Douglas Hartmayer said after leaving the flight, the group headed to the baggage terminal to collect their belongings, which were taken off the plane.
Tournament officials had no immediate comment.
The Russians enjoyed a wild on-ice celebration once the final horn sounded, players throwing their gloves and sticks in the air as they jumped off the bench to mob goalie Igor Bobkov.
The celebration eventually spilled over into the media interview area, where team captain Vladimir Tarasenko and teammate Yevgeni Kuznetsov hugged and chanted “We’re champions! We’re champions.”
The Russians proved to be the comeback kids during the 11-day tournament. They reached the final by overcoming third-period deficits to win their previous two games.
They weren’t counted among the favourites in a tournament that featured Canada and the defending champion United States. Russia was also coming off an embarrassing sixth-place finish last year.
