The Globe and Mail's Al Maki has a nice story on Ladislav Scurko in today's paper, one that gets into some of the details behind just what happened that led to the former Flyers prospect confessing to murdering a referee in his native Slovakia.

And yet still so much is unknown.

Scurko's team in Slovakia, the powerhouse HC Kosice club, issued a statement on the weekend that expressed about as much shock as one would expect in this situation. Loosely translated, it said: "We do not know what was the motive for such an act and may not ever know. There are many difficult issues that can not find the answer immediately, because we do not see into the soul of a man. But we do know definitively that our work will continue. Any violence is in sharp contrast with what was promoted in the club."

Scurko was fairly well-known in the North American hockey community, as he played three years of junior hockey in the WHL (mainly with the Seattle Thunderbirds). Maki talks to a few of his teammates that have moved onto university hockey, and they, like the Slovak club, were stunned.

The story, meanwhile, given the odd fact that it was a referee that was killed, has made the rounds in the global press. The local publications offer the most interesting tidbits, however, and several report that the slaying came after a dispute over money that was owed to Scurko. (The body of 26-year-old Marek Liptaj was apparently found in the forest off of Highway 68 off to the right-hand side on this map.)

One publication today, however, reports that there are rumours of a homosexual relationship between the two, running a video under the heading "The Murder of Love?"

Police, meanwhile, have said the case has nothing to do with his hockey career (despite all the jokes on the 'net about the case).

As for a few other details about his background, Scurko essentially dropped out of high school to come to North America and play junior, something that made his mother (a school teacher) unhappy. He played in the world junior tournament in B.C. back in 2006, and from interviews at the time, sounded quite naive about the NHL and where he would play after junior hockey.

Scurko apparently also suffered some sort of knee injury in his final WHL season with Tri-City and only played 12 games. Even so, by Slovakian standards, he was a talented player and well-known in the hockey community.

We'll likely hear more about this as details become available.