My season in war-torn Ukraine

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Sometime in February, on the night before a game, team management called an emergency meeting. As I cleaned the dirty snow from my shoes and shuffled into the building, I passed by the Russian news reports on the televisions in the janitorial staff's office, and exhausted the limits of my rudimentary Russian skills to decipher their propaganda. "Something-something terrorism, something-something Americanski-Europeaski something," said the reporter. The janitors muttered in assent. There were images of tires burning and smoke rising. The protests in Kiev had turned violent, the main square was burning, and for the first time since the crisis began people had been killed in broad daylight.

Though the league's governing body had successfully ignored politics up until then, it was suddenly faced with the terrible optics of playing basketball games while civilians were being shot in the streets by government security services. It was decided that the next day would be a national day of mourning in remembrance of the people who were killed. Our next game would need to be postponed for a few weeks, but all of the weekend games would be played as scheduled. "Don't worry," the club's vice president said. "This will give them enough time to clear these troublemakers from the streets, and the season will proceed normally."

The next day, more than 80 people were killed.