Don Cherry...god help us!

[patate]

www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040128.wcherry29/BNStory/Sports/

It's good to see that french commentators are waking up and trying to put an end to the Cherry's napoleonesque hold on CBC. I won't really be happy unitl he's out of HNIC. This guy makes what... 700k-800k a year, plus Ron that put us at 1,5 million a year, that's a lot for 2 clowns. Maybe Don's shirts are too tight on the neck, blood can't go to the brain.

[Polarice]

There's nothing wrong with Don Cherry's comments on the French players wearing Visors, or what not.

We might not agree with him but he has the right to say whatever he wants. Hundreds of thousands of people tune in to watch him every saturday including me.

The problem with Cherry is that he is a proud Canadian and see's that the French people are not. That seperation thing.

And the more negative press he gets the worse he gets. So you know the old saying all press is good press. The CBC loves all the attention he gets, there's not much to talk about on CBC is there. So if people are talking about him they must be watching him!

[TheHabsfan]

Should make for an interesting Coach's Corner on Saturday!

It's really unfortunate that he drops these little bombs on a regular basis. Other than these idiocies, I find him quite entertaining...and in fact, there are a few things that he says that I agree with (ie. the no-touch icing and the instigator rule).. If only he stuck to hockey...

I do have to agree with you however, that a National Network shouldn't accept these types of comments. Other than answering to the biggoted needs of some people (ignorant IMO), it has no value.

THF

[BadCompany]

I don't know about the separation thing, and prefer not to go there, frankly, but there is no doubting Don Cherry is popular entertainment. Often, more people tune into Don Cherry than tune in to watch the actual games.

If Don Cherry was boring, and bland, and routine, and logical and, indeed, sane, nobody would watch him. Anybody really care what Kelly Hrudey thinks?

Do people watch 100% for the calm, reasoned, debate? Or do they tune in to see Michel Bergeron work on his next coronary? Do people read Rejean Tremblay because he knows his hockey? Or because he can be counted on to write something immflamtory and controversial? Is Jack Todd hockey's gift to journalism, or is he just the square-headed version of Tremblay?

Controversy sells. People accord too much importance to the actual content of these noted clowns, and not enough importance to the entertainment value they bring.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

BadCompany said:

Controversy sells. People accord too much importance to the actual content of these noted clowns, and not enough importance to the entertainment value they bring.

D@mn straight!

[patate]

You see, it's certainly not the first time Cherry go out against french canadians. He's just a narrow-minded who has no place in a public station, I could not care less if he worked at TSN or whatever but the fact is that he does get paid by the public. So he's basically spitting on 1/4 of the canadian population. As it was said often, the same kind of comments been hold by a french media toward english-speaking people would never be accepted. I dont buy the rating stuff or anything, I say get that red-neck stupid @ss out of here.

P.S. He blamed the french canadians for the fact that Ottawa decided not to join the USA for the " liberation of Irak " ( of course mister Cherry was incline to bomb a defensless country ). Turns out Donny was way out on this one and he can thanks quebecers for our goverment common sense.

[HabbaDasher]

Cherry is entertainment, pure and simple.
The problem is, he's usually not very entertaining.

[insomnius]

HabbaDasher said:

Cherry is entertainment, pure and simple.
The problem is, he's usually not very entertaining.

Then you contradict yourself my dashing friend...

[Montrealer]

When he said the other day that the fact the Leafs were well-received in the Bell Centre was a result of English Montrealers "expressing" themselves (instead of the real reason - 5,000 tickets sold to Torontonians by the Habs); it made me realize how out-of touch and moronic this guy is.

[Deleted]

Don Cherry's always making comments towards French players and European players. With the way he " dictates " on Coach's Corner, you'd think he is a communist.

I think he is. Either that or he's bitter that we kept beating his Bruins year after year when he was coaching.

[jkr]

Montrealer said:

When he said the other day that the fact the Leafs were well-received in the Bell Centre was a result of English Montrealers "expressing" themselves (instead of the real reason - 5,000 tickets sold to Torontonians by the Habs); it made me realize how out-of touch and moronic this guy is.

I heard that too and wondered what he meant.

Does he think that because you are an anglophone Quebecer that you are a leaf fan? How stupid. I grew up as anglophone Montrealer and the leafs are the last team I would root for.

The Canadiens transcend language but of course that concept would go right over his head.

[seventeen]

BadCompany said:

Anybody really care what Kelly Hrudey thinks?

Me.

Hrudey is the brightest, most insightful hockey commentator on the planet. If only he could initiate a palace coup and debunk, denounce and dethrone the dullard duo of Neale and Cole. Sigh.

[franko]

Ah, guys (and gals), logic goes over Mr. Cherry's head. At least when it comes to Coach's Corner.

He gets paid because he brings in the ratings which brings in the bucks. As has been said, Coach's Corner is the most watched portion of HNIC. People hate him, but tune in after the first period (viewership goes up after the period ends and drops after Coach's Corner). When people tune in, the powers that be can adjust advertising rates (upwards, of course) and they do. Which brings in more money to MotherCorp. Doesn't matter that what is said is reasonable or not. What matters is the almighty $.

Indeed, as

BadCompany said:

Controversy sells.

And it is selling big time.

[Raskolnikov76]

I may be a separatist, the fact is that i am still a canadian citizen right now, and i pay my taxes likes anyone else.

I don't want my tax money to be spent on a racist clown that will insult me on national television.

I believe in free speech, let the stupid make a fool of himself if he wants too, but not with money.

[blaise]

Don Cherry is an unscripted Archie Bunker. He differs from Carroll O'Connor in that O'Connor didn't mean what he said on the show in his Archie role. All in the Family had high ratings because of the outrageous things Archie said. I suppose the same applies to HNIC because of Cherry, the man who can't count to seven, the man who must have incurred more concussions than Eric Lindros and Pat LaFontaine combined to result in such asininity.

[JJ68]

Some people may think was he's saying is only entertainment and not racism, but if you take exactly what he said and substitute the words "french" for "blacks" and substitute the word "euros" for "Jews", believe me we would be having a whole different conversation. He would be called a racist and an anti-semite and would lose his job the next morning...but because he's insulting insignificant French Canadians and Sweeds nobody cares and nothing will happen to him. If he said those exact same jokes about Jews, there would be a national outcry of the whole Jewish community, it would be seen as anti-semitism, and he would be forced to resign by the networks. But French-Canadians do not have anybody in any kind of position of power so it's easy to pick on them, and on Sweeds and Finns.

[myhabs]

JJ68 said:

Some people may think was he's saying is only entertainment and not racism, but if you take exactly what he said and substitute the words "french" for "blacks" and substitute the word "euros" for "Jews", believe me we would be having a whole different conversation. He would be called a racist and an anti-semite and would lose his job the next morning...but because he's insulting insignificant French Canadians and Sweeds nobody cares and nothing will happen to him. If he said those exact same jokes about Jews, there would be a national outcry of the whole Jewish community, it would be seen as anti-semitism, and he would be forced to resign by the networks. But French-Canadians do not have anybody in any kind of position of power so it's easy to pick on them, and on Sweeds and Finns.

you are 100% right, I agree completely. If he said the same things about Jews for example as he does for French Canadians or Europeans there would be Jewish organisations all across the country demanding for his resignation, and since there are alot of Jewish people who run most of the TV networks he definately would not have a job anymore....it wouldn't take very long for him to be associated with anti semitism and he woudn't get a job on any network for the rest of his life, but since he takes shots at the French, Finnish and Sweed players as JJ68 said before, nothing will ever happen to this guy cause nobody is there to do anything.....French Canadian and Sweeds and Finns don't run television networks so he's always home free.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

AFAIK, promoting hatred is a crime in this country. Cherry is teetering on the edge.

*

Did you know that according to Cherry there's a Saku Koivoy playing for the Habs? During last night's Leafs/Sens game Cherry managed to say Koivoy three times in describing this player.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

myhabs said:

.....French Canadian and Sweeds and Finns don't run television networks...

Sure they do. Just not the one Cherry is on.

And the Jewish conspiracy theory is as lame as it gets, and very Cherry-like.

[jkr]

The said:

Did you know that according to Cherry there's a Saku Koivoy playing for the Habs? During last night's Leafs/Sens game Cherry managed to say Koivoy three times in describing this player.

His deliberate mispronunciation of names ( Jagr also) is another example of his ignorance. And that expensive bobblehead that sits beside him during coaches' corner just lets it happen.

[Forum Ghost]

It seems Cherry's antics are well-known south of the border as well.

This from Friday's Philadelphia Inquirer:


And yet somehow Don Cherry survives.

For decades, the sputum-spewing ex-Boston Bruins coach, whose role on Hockey Night in Canada is now more that of social commentator than hockey analyst, has been demeaning the NHL's Russians, Swedes, Czechs and French Canadians.

Cherry believes that all non-North Americans are gutless interlopers in a rough-and-tumble Canadian sport that ought to be reserved for toothless brawlers with easy-to-pronounce names.

As part-owner of the Ontario Hockey League's Mississauga Ice Dogs, Cherry has refused to sign Europeans. A few weeks ago, he suggested that drug use was a problem in junior hockey, but only in Quebec. More recently, he said the protective visors now in vogue in the NHL were a sign of weakness and that most who wore them were Europeans and French Canadians.

But because his Hockey Night segment is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's highest-rated show, Cherry has managed to parlay his prejudices into great wealth and fame.

www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/7830235.htm

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

That about sums it up in a nutbar, allright.

[Forum Ghost]

The CBC, which has withstood two decades' worth of slings and arrows aimed at Cherry, is unlikely to act. TV ratings - even in Canada - speak louder than outrage.

And this sums up why the CBC hasn't/won't do anything about it.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

CHERRY 'CROSSES THE LINE'

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. -- A parents' group is upset at what it views as anti-French Canadian comments during Hockey Night In Canada broadcasts.

The British Columbia and Yukon branch of the Canadian Parents for French made the complaint in writing to the president of the CBC and to Don Cherry and Ron MacLean, who appear together on the Coach's Corner segment of HNIC on Saturday nights.

"I understand that Mr. Cherry and Mr. MacLean seek to entertain and provoke hockey fans and Canadians," branch president Melanie Tighe-Lovsin said in a release yesterday.

"However, Mr. Cherry's repeated comments have crossed the line. Hockey Night In Canada is the CBC's highest-rated show with a huge audience among young people. The moment has come for the CBC to say to Mr. Cherry that such slurs even in the name of entertainment are not OK."

The release says in recent weeks Cherry had said "that wearing a visor protecting the eyes was a sign of weakness and lack of courage and that most visor wearers are Europeans or French guys."

The release also cites a MacLean joke at the opening of the Bobby Orr Hall of Fame in Parry Sound, Ont., last July that Cherry has nothing against French immersion, "He just figures they don't hold them down long enough."

- www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/WinnipegSun/Sports/2004/02/03/333977.html

[seventeen]

I've tired of him. He should go entertain in Mississauga, if they'll have him.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

From Jack Todd's column this morning:

If all bigotry stems from ignorance, then Cherry is as ignorant as they come, because what he was saying, in effect, was that players who wear visors are cowards and that only the cowardly Frenchmen and Europeans would wear one.

For a man who loves to glorify the military, Cherry betrayed an almost stunning ignorance of every battle from Austerlitz to Verdun to Dieppe - and here we are speaking only of the courage of French soldiers from both France and Quebec. Beyond that, he clearly has never heard of the Scandinavian berserkers who were once the scourge of Europe, the Battle of Poltava or the courage of the Finns in their fight against the Soviets at the beginning of the Second World War.

By now, of course, we have come to expect such ignorance from Cherry. But this time, he might finally come home to roost.

Some of the most intelligent and serious criticism of Cherry's comment has come from former Canadiens coach Jacques Demers. Demers normally sidesteps controversy, but this time he has waded right into a potentially explosive national debate.

In French in his column in Le Journal, in English on The Habs This Week and across the spectrum of his many media jobs in both official languages, Demers has called for Cherry to make a full public apology. Failing that, says Demers, the CBC should act at last and fire Cherry for bigotry.

As Demers points out, prominent public figures in the U.S. such as Al Campanis and Rush Limbaugh have been fired for less - but for reasons that are hard for the French-speaking minority in this country to understand, Cherry goes on and on.

[sergejean]

I've read Todd's comment... but in reading people's comment in reaction to the article, I noticed that there is a long way to go before some mentality changes...Sad

[franko]

All anti-Cherry comments are expunged from the CBC/Sports web site. No one is allowed to insult or attack the dignity of another on the site. Go figure--you can do it live and it is entertainment; you write a letter of complaint and it is "not nice".

[blaise]

Why are 2 Cherry threads running simultaneously?