David W Cerny/Reuters via Imagn Images
On Tuesday, the men’s hockey team representing France at the Winter Olympics saw its run come to an end with a loss to Germany. The defeat came a day after Pierre Crinon was booted from the team over his behavior in a game against Canada, and he’ll be facing some criminal charges when he heads home after his fight with Tom Wilson led to a prosecutor reviving a case that had previously been dropped.
France was not expected to contend for a medal in the Winter Olympics, and the haters who said they couldn’t do it were correct. The French went 0-3 in group play with a -15 goal differential (tied with Italy for the worst in the opening stage), and Germany officially snuffed out any faint glimmer of hope that was remaining with a 5-1 win in the knockout round.
Based on how they fared in their first three games, it is very hard to imagine the outcome of their final one would have been much different with the services of Pierre Crinon, the defenseman who was dismissed by the team after he was ejected for fighting Tom Wilson after answering the bell for his elbow to the head of Nathan MacKinnon in a 10-2 loss.
It’s worth noting that the IIHF declined to hit him (and Wilson) with any supplementary discipline on top of the automatic game misconduct that comes with fighting at the Olympics. However, his own squad found his antics egregious to the point where it merited an early exit, which is almost certainly linked with what transpired a couple of months before his time in Milano Cortina came to a premature end.
Crinon also had some haters who argued he didn’t deserve to play at the Olympics after he sucker-punched a goalie during a Ligue Magnus in November and was subsequently suspended. That was also a great call from the haters, and his inability to restrain himself in Italy means he’s being ordered to show up in court back in France after the criminal charges he initially skirted were revived due to his temper.
French hockey player Pierre Crinon will be facing criminal charges linked to his fight with Tom Wilson at the Winter Olympics
On November 30th, Crinon’s Grenoble faced off against Angers in a Ligue Magnus showdown where a brawl broke out, and the 30-year-old defenseman landed in hot water for blindsiding goaltender Matthew O’Connor with a punch that left him covered in blood.
Crinon was ordered to serve a seven-game suspension, and a prosecutor in Grenoble considered pursuing criminal charges before ultimately deciding to drop the case after determining that league-imposed hiatus was a suitable punishment.
However, according to TG+, they have had a change of heart after seeing how he handled himself against Canada in what ended up being his final game at the Winter Olympics, with the outlet saying his “repeated acts of violence demonstrate that the player failed to learn from the initial dismissal of the case.”
The 30-year-old has subsequently been ordered to appear in court on May 27th, where he will face “charges of intentional violence resulting in an incapacity for work of less than eight days, committed within a venue hosting a sporting event, with the use of a weapon” (the weapon in this case is his glove).
Talk about a rough week.