Interim President of Swiss Ice Hockey, Marc-Anthony Anner (55 years old) is the antithesis of Stefan Schärer. The Vaudois abhors suits, ties and hours spent in places almost too exclusive to be true. Unanimously elected president of the Regio League in 2019 to succeed Valaisan Jean-Marie Viaccoz, he immediately became vice-president of the Federation where he stood out. Not just because he wears almost as many rings as he has fingers. But because it puts the game and its actors at the center of its concerns. He attends some 200 matches per season, a large majority in the junior, women’s and amateur categories. When he travels to support the Swiss teams, he always spends at least a third of time with the supporters.
Marc-Anthony Anner, who founded the international U17 tournament in Monthey, is fluent in both the Alemannic dialect and French, a serious asset within a sports federation where the language of Molière is still considered very exotic. Son of a Swiss-German and an English woman, he spent the first years of his life overseas before settling in the canton of Vaud.
He was around ten years old when he put on skates for the first time, a cane in hand, at the Eaux-Minérales skating rink in Morges. His highest achievement in this sport: tenure, at 17, with HC Villars in the 2nd league.
Although he loves hockey, Marc-Anthony Anner worships English football. Moreover, it is rumored that he could lose his legendary smile if he heard criticism of West Ham United, a club whose logo he has tattooed on his heart.
It was in 1998, because he was bilingual, that he was called to the rescue for the first time by the Swiss Hockey League. That year, on Christmas Day, a scandal broke out: the president was suspected of having hit the cash register. A crisis committee headed by the late Jean Martinet was created and Anner was integrated into it.
When he is not in an ice rink, he is the director of the Ollon-Villars-Gryon primary and secondary school. Or somewhere on the planet, in a 2 CV or a 4L, a backpack in the trunk, a ZZ Top cassette in the old car radio.
