LI figure skater mourns DC plane crash victims — including ‘baby skating sister': ‘Like a really bad nightmare'
A Long Island figure skater revealed the devastating moment she learned five people she knew including her 'baby skating sister' were aboard the doomed American Airlines flight Wednesday night.
Audrey Shin, a Smithtown native, woke up Thursday morning to the heartbreaking news of the mid-air collision between Flight 5342 and an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington, DC.
The 20-year-old competed with her fellow skaters at the National Development Camp during the US Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kan. last week but flew home a few days earlier than some of the other athletes.
Shin says she knew at least five peers were booked for the return flight to Washington DC, and immediately began making phone calls, News 12 Long Island reported.
Some of the calls went unanswered as Shin started to fear the worst.
Her fears became reality when the Skating Club of Boston released the names of its members who were onboard the flight.
'I have no words. It's been an extremely difficult morning. Praying for everyone that was involved in this crash,' Shin wrote on her Instagram Story underneath the post from the skating club.
The Boston-area passengers included Jinna Han and her mother Jin, Spencer Lane and his mother Christine, and a husband and wife coaching duo and 1994 World Champion pair Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova.
Shin said seeing 13-year-old Jinna's name on the list of victims left her 'heartbroken.'
'Jinna, my little baby skating sister… I don't believe it. So heartbroken right now,' she wrote in a separate post.
'She was on the flight with her mom coming back from the skating camp,' Shin told the outlet. 'I just feel like it's a dream right now, like a really bad nightmare.'
Follow the NYP's coverage of the deadly DC plane collisionAir traffic controller's reaction to DC collision revealed in chilling audio: 'Crash, crash, crash, this is an alert three'
DC chopper, plane crash live updates: No survivors expected after AA flight collides with military helicopter in deadliest US crash since 2009
Timeline of air traffic controllers issuing warnings before American Airlines plane, Black Hawk helicopter collision in DC
Trump says collision between American Airlines jet and Army helicopter 'looks like it should have been prevented'
The six Boston Skating Club members were among 14 members of the US Figure Skating community aboard the flight from Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport to Ronald Reagan National Airport.
The Bombardier CRJ700 regional jet was preparing to land on Runway 33 at Reagan National when it collided with the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk 400 feet above the river separating Washington DC and Arlington, Virginia.
Officials believe all 60 passengers and 4 crew members aboard the plane, along with the three soldiers in the helicopter were killed when the plane crashed into the Potomac River.
US Figure Skating confirmed the skaters, coaches and parents were returning from the National Development Camp that was held in conjunction with the US Figure Skating Championships held at the INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita from Jan. 20 to Jan. 26.
'We are devastated by this unspeakable tragedy and hold the victims' families closely in our hearts,' the governing body said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
1 trade Boston Red Sox must avoid making before 2025 deadline
The post 1 trade Boston Red Sox must avoid making before 2025 deadline appeared first on ClutchPoints. The Boston Red Sox are four games under .500, and they sit 9.0 games back in the American League East division. However, the Red Sox are just 4.5 games back in the Wild Card race. There is still plenty of time for Boston to make some noise with the Summer just getting started. The one problem for the Red Sox right now is they are without one of their best hitters, Alex Bregman. Bregman suffered a strained quad, and he has been out for quite some time. The bad news for Boston is Bregman is still a long time away from returning to the diamond. However, the Red Sox did promote top prospect Roman Anthony, and prospect Marcelo Meyer has not been play too bad. Boston will need some other players to step up a little bit more, especially on the mound. With that in mind, there is no need for the team to panic heading into the dog days of the season. The Red Sox do not need to necessarily become buyers at the deadline, but they should definitely not be sellers. In fact, there is one player that has been thrown around in trade conversations recently that Boston needs to hang on to. As mentioned, the Red Sox are not out of the playoff picture just yet. There have been plenty of teams in history to start a season under .500 and still make the postseason. Just last year, the Detroit Tigers started the year 37-44 through their first 81 games. When the Washington Nationals won the World Series in 2019, they started the season off 19-31. The Tigers fell short last year, but making the playoffs should be the goal for Boston. Once the postseason starts, anything can happen. In order for the Red Sox to get to the postseason, they need their pitchers to get better. On the season, Boston's starting pitchers have the fifth-highest ERA (4.59), sixth-highest WHIP (1.41), and the third-highest batting average against (.271). The starting pitching has been the biggest problem for the team, and it needs to be addressed. If the Red Sox can fix their problems on the mound, there is a chance for them to make the playoffs in 2025. Jarren Duran is slashing .271/.324/.421 with four home runs, 37 RBI, 37 runs scored, and 79 total hits in 67 games played. The left fielder has been great for the Red Sox this year, and he still has four years of team control. If a team were to trade for Duran, Boston would get a fantastic return. They would be able to rebuild their pitching staff, or get a couple more top prospect hitters. However, that would not be the smart move for the Major League team or the organization. The Red Sox need to hang on to their star left fielder. He is the future in the outfield for Boston, and has the potential to be a building block for the Red Sox to get back to the Fall Classic. The team has to find a way to keep competing with the New York Yankees and the rest of the division. Duran is going to be a big part of that. If Boston needs to trade some players this season, there are plenty of options. Jarren Duran should not be one of those options. Related: Ken Rosenthal's Red Sox truth bomb after Roman Anthony promotion Related: Red Sox rookie Roman Anthony gets brutally honest on embarrassing gaffe in debut
New York Times
3 hours ago
- New York Times
Why Canadiens rookie Lane Hutson's Calder Trophy win is just the beginning
Lane Hutson winning the Calder Trophy as the NHL's rookie of the year is easy to justify by looking at numbers on a screen. But his true value to the Montreal Canadiens can be found elsewhere: in the desire behind those numbers and his motivation for producing them. It has nothing to do with the Calder Trophy. It has to do with another trophy. Advertisement When Hutson was asked Tuesday what he's most proud of accomplishing in his rookie NHL season, the historic nature of his statistics did not come up. 'I think as a group, we fought to the end,' Hutson said, 'we fought to Game 82 and got into a playoff spot.' It was appropriate that Hutson, on June 10, was speaking to the media from a hockey rink, with a row of sticks to his right and a nondescript cinder block wall typical of a dressing room as a Zoom background. He was in Boston for the Bauer Combine, trying out new sticks and gear for next season. It was appropriate because Hutson spent just about every day this season in a hockey rink. On the days the Canadiens were off, he would go to the team's suburban training facility and get a skate in, work on a few things on his own and go home. Largely, he explained during the season, it was because he had nothing better to do. 'I don't really have hobbies,' he said. But that's not the whole story. The truth is, Hutson has a constant desire to improve, and he loves playing hockey, as evidenced by his first answer when asked how it felt to win the Calder. 'I'm just fortunate that I get to play for the Montreal Canadiens and do what I love every day and just taking it day by day,' he said. Hutson overwhelmingly won the Calder vote with 165 of the 191 first-place votes and finished second on the remaining 26 ballots. Of the 13 rookies to collect at least a fifth-place vote in balloting, Hutson, Logan Stankoven, Jackson Blake and Mackie Samoskevich were the only ones to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Among that group, Hutson easily had the biggest impact on his team qualifying for the postseason. It was a brief exposure to playoff hockey, but it will stick with Hutson this offseason, leading into training camp in the fall. After the Canadiens were eliminated in five games by the Washington Capitals, Hutson reflected on how much he had grown from beginning to end. Advertisement 'I felt like a completely different player from the first (game) to the fifth one,' Hutson said on May 2. 'Having that confidence and kind of knowing what I can and can't do, just like the regular season early on. It was a cool adjustment to have, kind of knowing I can have an impact and help. But I think I have a lot left to learn in that department for sure.' In other words, the series provided Hutson with information, and one of his superpowers is his ability to take information and use it to find solutions to barriers that might hold him back. He's done that as a smaller defenceman his entire hockey-playing life — finding ways to defend bigger, stronger players on the ice, finding ways to exploit holes and lapses in coverage from opposing teams, finding ways to use his brain as a weapon. He entered his rookie season with two NHL games' worth of information to work off of, and when he referred to the adjustments he had to make early in the regular season, it is notable. The version of Hutson that played in the playoffs was completely different from the version of Hutson that began the regular season. The early version saw every touch as an opportunity to attack, to make something happen and get the puck in the net. He didn't understand the flow of the NHL game or how attacking at this level can sometimes be more valuable and dangerous than being able to turn on a dime on your skates' edges. 'I think I started to understand the timing of things, how quickly things can happen and how each game will never be the same, what to prepare for, all that stuff,' he said Tuesday. 'Once you do it enough, you kind of get a feel for what's coming. But you've also got to be prepared for anything that can happen in a game.' Hutson's rookie season produced historic numbers, yes, but more importantly, it provided information. Hutson will use that to get better this summer; no one should doubt that. But the rest of the NHL will also use that to better defend him, to make it more difficult for him to find those holes and lapses in coverage. It is a chess game every gifted young player has to go through in the NHL, and considering how important Hutson was this season to the Canadiens' success, it will be a focal point for his opponents all season, just as it was for Capitals coach Spencer Carbery in the playoffs. Advertisement In the 552 five-on-five minutes the Canadiens played this season with Hutson and Nick Suzuki on the ice, the Canadiens outscored their opponents 40-19 and controlled 57.7 percent of the shot attempts, according to Natural Stat Trick. With them off the ice, the Canadiens were outscored 93-54 and controlled 44.45 percent of the shot attempts. But it should also be noted that Hutson and Suzuki started 75.62 percent of their shifts together in the offensive zone, and despite that, gave up (slightly) more high-danger chances than they earned, and their expected goal percentage (52.51 percent) was much lower than their goals for percentage (67.8 percent). So, there's room for improvement. And what drives Hutson to go to the rink on off days is that desire to improve and to win. 'I think just the feeling of winning hockey games and playing at the highest level and doing it in repeatable ways and doing it the right way, it kind of just drives me to want to help win and want to be a part of a winning culture,' Hutson said. 'That in itself is enough to kind of fuel what I need to do and what I feel all our guys try to do.' A common refrain this season from Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis was that he would let 'Lane be Lane.' It's not that St. Louis never worked with Hutson on areas for improvement — quite the opposite. But St. Louis felt more than comfortable letting Hutson learn a lot of how the NHL works on his own, through trial and error. One of St. Louis' core beliefs is that a player's capacity for improvement is a skill unto itself, largely because he considered that to be his greatest skill as a Hall of Fame player himself. It seems clear Hutson has a similar capacity for improvement, and while winning the Calder Trophy sets a high bar for his second NHL season, nothing Hutson has shown in his career to date would suggest he will fail to hit that bar or exceed it. 'I just want to keep learning and absorbing as much as I can and take what I learned from my first year and take it into next year,' he said. Hutson is the first Canadiens player to win the Calder since Ken Dryden in 1972. To put that in context, Hutson's father, Rob, was born a few weeks before Dryden won the award. Le dernier joueur du Tricolore à avoir gagné le Calder, Ken Dryden, passe le flambeau à Lane The last Habs player to win the Calder, Ken Dryden, passes the torch to Lane #GoHabsGo — Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) June 10, 2025 Next season, the Canadiens will have another strong Calder candidate in the lineup in Ivan Demidov, and Hutson is the president of the Ivan Demidov fan club. 'I think he's going to be a star,' Hutson said at the end of the season. 'Just the way he handles the puck in important situations and how calm and confident he is, you can't teach it. I think that has the makings of a star player. That's the hope. It'll be fun to see.' Things are decidedly moving in the right direction in Montreal.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
New Bruins coach Marco Sturm has seen the passion of Boston fans — from both sides
BOSTON (AP) — Marco Sturm got his first taste of the passionate Bruins fans when he was traded to Boston for No. 1 overall draft pick — and soon-to-be NHL MVP — Joe Thornton. 'I mean, it wasn't my fault, right?' the former Bruins forward told chuckling reporters on Tuesday at a news conference to introduce him as the team's coach. 'I got here, and it was difficult. I'm not going to lie. You read the paper or social media or even you go on the street, people will let you know, right? "But also it pushes you. And I saw it in the positive way," Sturm said. 'I've got such good memories here. And I know the fans, as soon as they feel that there's something good happening here, they will support you. I know that. It kind of goes the other way, too. But I don't want to talk about that. I want to look forward.' A three-time Olympian and first-round draft pick who played five of his 14 NHL seasons for the Bruins, Sturm led Germany to a silver medal at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics and spent the next six years in the Los Angeles Kings organization, the last three as head coach of its AHL affiliate. The 46-year-old former left wing replaces Joe Sacco, who finished the season as the interim coach after Jim Montgomery was fired in November. Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said that as the team tries to rebuild after missing the playoffs for the first time since 2016 it was important to have a coach 'who understands our fan base and values the same things — of being incredibly hard out each and every night.' The Bruins marked the occasion with a news conference in their offices overlooking Causeway Street and the TD Garden. Former captain Patrice Bergeron, who assisted on Sturm's overtime game-winner in the 2010 Winter Classic at Fenway Park, was in the front row as a show of support. German chocolate cupcakes — a nod to the new coach's heritage — were served. Sturm said he never considered coaching while he played, but he started working with his own kids before getting the job as head coach and general manager of the German national team in 2015. 'And that's where I really realized, 'This is actually me,'' he said. 'And that's where I have passion. That's where I'm good at. And then to go after that.' He put his plans for family time on hold and spent six years living in Los Angeles, away from his wife and children. 'I was chasing my dream,' Sturm said, adding that the children, who are now 19 and 21, missed Boston since moving away. 'My kids grew up there. They always wanted to come back. And here I am. Now they get their wish.' Sturm said he wouldn't have taken just any opening, but the Bruins presented a team that has strong goaltending in Jeremy Swayman and a solid core led by defenseman Charlie McAvoy and forward David Pastrnak that could push for the playoffs if it stays healthy. Boston also stockpiled draft picks and young talent from the midseason trade deadline purge that shipped off several veterans — including Brad Marchand, the only remaining member of their 2011 Stanley Cup championship roster. After posting 100-plus points in six straight non-pandemic-shortened seasons — including a Presidents' Trophy in 2023, when they set NHL records of 65 wins and 135 points — the Bruins finished with 76 points this season; only three teams were worse. 'Every job — it doesn't matter if you're in Boston or not — will be a challenge. But it's a good challenge. I love challenges," Sturm said. 'I know the expectations here. I know how it is. But as long as I'm putting my work and preparation in, I know I will be in good shape.' ___
