Alexei Cherepanov

In an age where you can't do anything without the knowledge that someone is nearby with a camera of some sort at the ready to record your every move, it's not really a surprise that the video of Rangers prospect Alexei Cherepanov's last moments on this Earth were captured and posted to YouTube. I don't want to post the video here because, after watching the clip, I felt like a voyeur. In the clip, you can't actually see Cherepanov's face. What strikes you immediately is the confusion. Jaromir Jagr is standing at the end of the bench just, well, panicking. The most you can see of Cherepanov himself is a glimpse of his feet still strapped in their skates that appears when the training/medical staff and some of his teammates desperately lift the dying 19-year-old off the bench and whisk him away from prying eyes.


If you're curious to see the clip for yourself, you can find it pretty easily with a simple search of his name. Rest assured that the clip isn't graphic. It's not like he was shot or anything, so it's NOTHING like the video of goaltender Clint Malarchuk's throat being cut by Steve Tuttle's skate. But that doesn't make it any less disturbing. After all, you are watching a kid die. The difference is that Malarchuk's story has a happy ending; Cherepanov's does not.