Vladimir Gromilin has been fired by Russian ice hockey team Sarmaty Orenburg after a clip on social media showed him kicking 19-year-old Jegor Razumnjak during a game this week.
The full video can be found below.
Sarmaty Orenburg had not released a statement on the incident, however, the club simply stated that Gromilin's contract with the team had been terminated and that Assistant coach Dmitri Stulov would take over as interim head coach immediately.
Gromilin had been the head coach of the club since the start of the 2019-20 season. He had been coaching minor league team's in Russia for the past 20 years.
Sarmaty Orenburg had a 20-22-3 record and sat 13th in the MHL's Eastern Conference standings prior to the incident, which might explain the tension between the now former-coach and his players.
The team finished the previous season in 13th in the MHL's Eastern Conference with a 14-38-3 record. That consistent underperformance likely meant Gromilin would have been fired soon even without the video of his assault going viral online.
Maybe the poor on-ice performance of the team is due to the fact that the player's had a fear of their head coach, however, now we may never know if this is the case.
