Fighting in hockey is strongly frowned upon in Olympic play, but that did not stop Tom Wilson on Sunday.
Wilson fought French defenseman Pierre Crinon, who had delivered a forearm to the head of Canada’s Nathan MacKinnon during the third period of Sunday’s group stage game. The scrap came with roughly seven minutes left in the third period and the Canadians already ahead 10-2.
WATCH📲 Tom Wilson drops the gloves at the Olympics to complete the Gordie Howe hat-trick pic.twitter.com/YOSAZ36L5u
— BetAlytics (@BetalyticsInc) February 15, 2026
Unlike in the NHL, fighting in Olympic hockey is an automatic game misconduct, so Wilson was ejected. However, he is not expected to face any further discipline for the incident.
Re: Tom Wilson, as per the rule book here there is no automatic suspension for fighting. But if the joint NHL-IIHF disciplinary committee saw something that it wanted to address, it could have. This was not the case in this instance. Wilson will get nothing further.
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) February 15, 2026
He can…
Wilson is, of course, one of the NHL’s most famous agitators, and it is hardly a surprise that he would get into it even at the Olympics. He has been accused of dirty play a number of times, and has some lengthy suspensions to his name as well. On the other hand, teammates undoubtedly appreciated him standing up for MacKinnon.
Wilson also opened the scoring for Canada on Sunday and later contributed an assist, giving him a Gordie Howe hat trick at the Olympics.
