When I learned of the death of Pierre Rinfret, I told myself that the action will not fail where he is now.
Pierre was a one-of-a-kind character. Not for nothing that he was nicknamed Bijou.
He was in real life the same man you heard on the radio and television.
A real whirlwind!
When he entered somewhere, everyone knew it. The Bij was still on fire!
Well not always, but almost.
Epic debates
I started to rub shoulders with Pierre when he was describing Canadian matches on CKAC.
When he was not playing backgammon with Michel Bergeron, who was his analyst, on the team’s charter flights, he started discussions with his colleagues from other media.
Years later, many of us found ourselves around the 110% table.
We yelled like in the old days – the coronations less and more – when we exchanged our opinions during morning training sessions and pre-game meals.
Pierre’s voice clashed with its radio presenter timbre. When he saw the mustard go up in my face on the set of 110%, he told me not to get angry and to wait for the end of his intervention.
Director Éric Lavallée whispered into Jean Pagé’s earpiece to let me go. Jean had his hands full some evenings.
Les Rinfret, Villeneuve, Bergeron, Tremblay, Perron, Gagnon, Poulin, Grégoire and others were not easy to control.
We all wanted to have the spittoon and make everyone listen to reason.
Close to players
Pierre had a way of making the athletes love him.
Our former baseball columnist, Serge Touchette, tells us.
“He was starting to cover the Expos [it was in 1984 for CJMS] when I saw him one evening with Pete Rose and his girlfriend eating Chinese. »
“That impressed me quite a bit. He was friends with Gary Carter and Steve Rogers. He had a knack for sticking with star players. »
During his years as a reporter for the Canadiens games, a great friendship existed between him and José Théodore.
Great versatility
Pierre had great versatility. He was also a reporter for Habs games on TVA and Alouettes games on CJMS. His favorite sport was golf, a discipline in which he excelled.
Fate wanted him to die of lung cancer, like Guy Lafleur and Mike Bossy. In his years describing Canadian matches, he was always seen with a cigarette and a coffee in hand.
Nothing to diminish his enthusiasm!
Despite the disease that was eating away at him, Pierre held the microphone at 91.9 Sports as long as he could.
My sympathies to his beloved daughter Camille and her family.
