When the wires touch… again. Having become infamous this winter during the Milan-Cortina Olympics after violently fighting on the ice with Canadian Thomas Wilson – which earned him outright exclusion from the competition – French hockey player Pierre Crinon did it again in the Magnus League, the first national division, on Saturday.
The Grenoble defender, who violently knocked down a player from the Red Devils of Briançon during the quarter-final of the play-offs, was suspended eight matches by the CIRJ, which considered the repeat offense as an aggravating circumstance, he who had already taken seven matches last December after hitting Matt O’Connor, the Angers goalkeeper, who was the victim of a concussion.
A disguise that doesn’t work
But that’s not all, because otherwise it wouldn’t be funny: the thirty-year-old player is also caught up in a controversy off the field after the publication of a video in which we see him disguised as a prisoner in an orange American-style jumpsuit with, on the back, the names of his past and future victims. In the background, we recognize his teammates François Beauchemin and Antoine Fertin.
Indeed, we can see written in marker (and crossed out with a line) the names of Robin Gaborit, Matt O’Connor and Thomas Wilson, all three of whom fell under the blows of Crinon, as well as those, not yet crossed out (and therefore on his list of people to be killed in the future), of Pierre Bergeron and Kohei Sato, respectively coach and player of the Red Devils of Briançon, as well as that of Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, the president of the French Hockey Federation… “This is not a joke, especially from a player who multiplies violent actions and who constantly does it again,” protested one of the executives of the Red Devils club in Briançon on BFM DICI.
A dubious joke that makes no one laugh
Instead of playing it discreet and sanctioning his player for this joke which does not make many people laugh except him, the president of the Brûleurs de loups de Grenoble Jacques Reboh preferred to defend Pierre Crinon and denounce a “desire to harm the club”, before the match on Saturday which could confirm the qualification of the Grenoblois, who currently lead (3-1) against Briançon.
“It hurts me that a player I like is being demonized. During the end-of-season evenings, the players like to give each other ‘spicy gifts’, it’s a joke between friends,” said the latter in the columns of L’Equipe, ensuring in passing that the photo was taken out of context.
In the meantime, whatever its president says, the violent behavior of the repeat offender pushed the Grenoble public prosecutor to initiate legal proceedings after his fight at the Olympics, considering that he had “failed to seize the opportunity of this classification (initially without follow-up) to stop all violent behavior. » It is therefore before the courts that he will soon have to explain himself.
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