Today is a terrible day. There was a horrific plane crash that killed most of the Lokomotiv team out of the KHL. All of the details are in my Twitter feed here:

http://twitter.com/#!/sportsology

Back in 2007, Karlis Skrastins played in his 487th game as a defenseman breaking the record that was currently held by Tim Horton. I found that this gave some insight into his personality so I am reposting it now in memoriam.

Recently the Colorado blueliner talked about it putting it all in perspective.

When he was asked about some of the injuries he has endured during the streak he gave an interesting answer.

“It was one year, the year before the lockout, it was the end of season, too, I think last ten or 15 games. I had a broken wrist. My team doctors and trainers, they did a big, big job. They made a nice wrist guard for me and I played one game, I played the second game, and I was feeling good. Of course there was a lot of pain but it didn't bother me to play my game. If I would be a forward, I don't know if I would be able to play that game with that wrist injury. But the type of game I play, be good defensively, I could get through that, and in the end, like, two, three, five games, it was really tough for me, but pain is kind of part of our job.”

What makes this defenseman tick, why play in all of those games without a game off?

“But hockey, it's my job. It's what I like to do and I like to be in the game and I like to play. I was feeling, you know, one practice, second practice, I was feeling not really good. But I was feeling all right and I could do all of the things I had to do on the ice, so I keep playing. In the future if I can play and if I can help the team, I'm going to be ready for those games.”

So does he frequent the Tim Hortons donut shops?

“I already said, yeah, every time I'm in Canada, it's kind of my favorite coffee shop where to go. Every time when I'm there, you know, I try to get some coffee because I love coffee. And in America I drink Starbucks, but when I'm in Canada, I always go to Tim Horton's to get some coffee from there.”