Pierre-Édouard Bellemare Headed To Switzerland?

Pierre-Édouard Bellemare’s days of playing in the NHL might be finished but he’s apparently not finished playing professional hockey.

French website Planète Hockey is claiming that the 39-year-old Frenchman has already signed a contract to play with HC Ajoie in Switzerland's National League.

Bellemare has never played in Switzerland before, but he did play professionally in France (Rouen Dragons) and Sweden (Leksands IF and Skellefteå AIK) before his NHL career.

Between 2014 and 2024, Bellemare played 700 NHL regular-season games for the Philadelphia Flyers, Vegas Golden Knights, Colorado Avalanche, Tampa Bay Lightning and Seattle Kraken, scoring 64 goals and adding 74 assists for 138 points, along with 182 penalty minutes. He also had 111 points in 497 playoff games.

Last season, he had seven points in 40 games for Seattle.

Bellemare was invited to Colorado’s training camp this year but was released from his try out on Oct 3.

Before training camp, Bellemare was captain of the French team at an Olympic qualifying tournament in Riga, Latvia. As the highest-finishing second-place team, France will qualify for the 2026 Winter Olympics in the event Russia does not participate.

Although Bellemare has represented France at 10 top-level IIHF World Championships, he has never played in the Olympics but has expressed a desire to do so. 

UPDATE: In the original publication of this article, no specific club was mentioned.