Robert Dietrich (25 July 1986 – 7 September 2011) was a professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

defenceman Defence or defense (in American English) in ice hockey is a player position that is primarily responsible for preventing the opposing team from Goal (ice hockey), scoring. They are often referred to as defencemen, D, D-men or blueliners (the l ...

. He was killed in the

2011 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash Eleven or 11 may refer to: *11 (number) * One of the years 11 BC, AD 11, 1911, 2011 Literature * ''Eleven'' (novel), a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn *''Eleven'', a 1970 collection of short stories by Patricia Highsmith *''Eleve ...

, in which all players and coaches on board the plane from the club perished.

Playing career

Dietrich was drafted 174th overall in the sixth round of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft by the

Nashville Predators The Nashville Predators (colloquially referred to as the Preds) are a professional ice hockey team based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Predators compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division (NHL), Central Divisio ...

. He played with the DEG Metro Stars of the

DEL Del, or nabla, is an operator used in mathematics (particularly in vector calculus) as a vector differential operator, usually represented by the nabla symbol ∇. When applied to a function defined on a one-dimensional domain, it denotes ...

from 2005 to the 2008. On 16 July 2007, Dietrich was signed to a three-year entry-level contract with the Predators. He was reassigned on loan to the Metro Stars for his first year of the contract, before he spent the final two seasons in North America with the Predators

American Hockey League The American Hockey League (AHL) is a professional ice hockey league in North America that serves as the primary developmental league of the National Hockey League (NHL). The league comprises 32 teams, with 26 in the United States and 6 in Cana ...

affiliate, the

Milwaukee Admirals The Milwaukee Admirals are a professional ice hockey team based in Milwaukee. They are the American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate of the National Hockey League (NHL)'s Nashville Predators. They play their homes games at the UW–Milwaukee Panther ...

. In his second year with the Admirals in 2009–10, Dietrich led the team with 43 points for defenseman, but was unable to appear in the NHL with Nashville. On 8 June 2010, Dietrich returned to Germany and signed a two-year contract with Adler Mannheim.

Death

On 7 September 2011, Dietrich was killed when a Yakovlev Yak-42 passenger aircraft, carrying nearly the entire Lokomotiv team, crashed just outside Yaroslavl, Russia. The team was traveling to

Minsk Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach (Berezina), Svislach and the now subterranean Nyamiha, Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administra ...

, Belarus to play their opening game of the season, with its coaching staff and prospects. Lokomotiv officials said "everyone from the main roster was on the plane plus four players from the youth team."

Career statistics

Regular season and playoffs

International

References

External links

* 1986 births 2011 deaths Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in Russia Adler Mannheim players Düsseldorfer EG players EC Peiting players German ice hockey defencemen Soviet emigrants to Germany German people of Kazakhstani descent Kazakhstani people of German descent Milwaukee Admirals players Nashville Predators draft picks Straubing Tigers players Victims of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash Sportspeople from Kaufbeuren Ice hockey people from Swabia (Bavaria) German expatriate ice hockey people German expatriate sportspeople in the United States German expatriate sportspeople in Russia Expatriate ice hockey players in Russia Expatriate ice hockey players in the United States {{Germany-icehockey-bio-stub