MONROE -- A minor-league hockey player was arrested early Friday in Colorado Springs for a murder that happened Sunday in Stallings.

Bogdan Nikoloevich Rudenko, 32, of 918 Summit Walk Drive in Charlotte, was arrested after a standoff between Colorado Springs Police at a motel.

Rudenko is a Russian-born hockey player who has bounced around minor-league hockey teams from Florida to Colorado in the last decade, according to HockeyDB.com. Locally, he played for the Charlotte Checkers in 2004-05 and – most recently – the Twin-City Cyclones in Winston-Salem from 2008-09.

Police charged him with one count of murder and he is being held without bond at the El Paso County Colorado Jail as a Fugitive from Justice.

The body of an unidentified white man was found behind Alexis Automotive in Stallings Sunday morning. Police Chief Larke Plyler Sr. said police are fairly certain they know who the victim is but would not release a name until they are positive.

“If the victim is the person we believe it to be he has no relatives in this country, making that task more difficult,” he said in a statement.

The medical examiner said the victim died from a gunshot wound, but Plyler would not say if the victim was shot once or multiple times.

Police have not identified a motive but Plyler said the department is fairly confident the two men knew each other.

The December murder was the first murder in Stallings in nearly two years. The town had no murders in 2008 and three in 2007 between the months of October and December.

“This has been a tough case to work, what with the language barrier and they aren’t citizens. It’s been difficult to identify them,” Plyler said.

Rudenko’s next court date is Dec. 28 in Colorado.