Don Cherry, Real Man

February 16, 2004

Right before the First World War, my mother’s family immigrated from Ireland to Canada, and, although my grandfather eventually settled in Detroit and obtained American citizenship, some of our family still resides in the province of Ontario.  As a child, I always loved crossing the border to visit them. 

I viewed Canada as a land of pristine beauty and unique custom.  Be it the names of the highways, the measurement of the gas or the containers of vinegar on the table,  I knew Canada and America were not the same. 

Before each trip, I’d beg my dad to take me to Fort Malden so I could run up its trenches and pretend to fire its canons.  If we went in the summer I’d swim and walk all day at Point Pelee.  The net result of the sojourns was that I left childhood with only reverence for our neighbors to the north. 

The Detroit River proved no barrier for the Canadian culture as the CBC was intrinsic to local entertainment in the pre-cable/satellite dish era.  Channel 9 was as much a part of life for me as Disney specials or NFL games on Sunday. 

The station was only one flick up from ABC and I saw a world hidden from many other Americans.  I was blessed with programs such as SCTV, Dr. Bundolo’s Pandemonium, curling on Saturday mornings, and static-free installments of hockey. 

Last November, with more than a little nostalgia, I watched a CBC broadcast for the first time since I moved to Chicago in 1995.  I listened to the commentators even more than I watched the game.  Although to this day, whenever I watch players hopping off the bench mid-period, I can still hear Harry Neale saying, “They’re making changes.  They‘re making changes.”

In this writer’s opinion, hockey is a 190 floor monument crafted by lore, bravery and wonder.  In this estrogen age, it is a necessity and functions as a breakwater against political correctness, and there is no better embodiment of the sport’s personality, among its legion of commentators, than Don Cherry.  If you’ve never heard of him before, he has a regular segment on Hockey Night in Canada called “Coach’s Corner.”  Years ago, I used to watch his 30 minutes of pre-game as well.  It was known as “Don Cherry’s Grapevine.”

I forgot all about his show until December when I watched a series of videos dedicated to the career of Bob Probert.  Interspersed among the fighting, were highlights and interviews.  One them featured Probert, his wife and Don Cherry.  Bob was a favorite of Don’s and, as they were conversing, the grizzled Cherry suddenly put his arm around the wife of the fiercest policeman in the NHL.  He said something like, “Why do you want this lug when you can have me?”  The audience and Probert found his behavior as hilarious as I did. 

Unscripted moments make Don Cherry a wonderful entertainer.  He’s as forceful and unpredictable as a polar bear but as warm and avuncular as your kindest relative.  On Coach’s Corner, he readily plays George Patton to Ron MacLean’s Bud Abbott.

I’m the only hockey fan I know who has read his autobiography, Grapes: A Vintage View of Hockey, and that situation needs remedy.  The book is a charming ride through the plantation the old school built and I highly recommend it.  It describes the game even better than it does Cherry. The first paragraph is indicative of its tone:

“I died on May 10, 1979; at 11:10 p.m. to be exact.  Two shots killed me.  The first, which left me critically wounded, was fired by Guy Lafleur.  The one that wiped me out came from the stick of Yvon Lambert.  Had I survived these attacks I have no doubt that I would still be coach of the Boston Bruins today and, quite likely, governor of Massachusetts.”

Unsurprisingly, like any man of wit, his observations offend some and humor others. Yet, a few words have recently made him the whipping boy for Canadian political correctness. 

Cherry landed in hot water this week for a Jan. 24 rant against making the use of visors mandatory. He said only "Europeans and French guys" routinely wear the eye shields.

That drew the attention of official languages commissioner Dyane Adam, who announced she's launching a formal investigation into Cherry's comments. She said she wanted to know whether his remarks reflected a systemic failure at the CBC to respect the Official Languages Act.

The Ottawa government might not be much of a threat when it comes to hurling illegal immigrants and terrorists across our border, but they certainly can nanny state one to death with their leftist laws and post-modernist mumbo-jumbo.  The bully boys of sensitivity are holding this fine people hostage and Cherry’s just the type who might say something about it.  That’s why the government jumped in to insert a seven second delay into his telecasts in case he criticizes a Frenchman or says something nice about the United States again.  Linwood Barclay points out the impracticality of this delay:

“But what makes CBC-types quake is Cherry's expression of ideas, and how do you know when to press the button for those? As soon as he says "French" or "Italian," you have to assume he's going to smear an entire culture, even though he may simply be launching into a rant about salad dressings.”

Deleting the words he says will only make them all the more appealing to those banned from hearing them.  The government will soon become bigger laughingstocks than they already are.  When governments try to coerce their citizens from committing thought crimes it is the state apparatus that becomes criminal.  What will the future bring?  Colby Cosh, in regards to the Conan O’Brien fiasco, speculates:

“Given the uproar, who wants to visit Toronto and possibly touch off some kind of international incident by saying the wrong thing? Aren't there dank, fungal Turkish-style prisons up there for people who make ethnic jokes? (Answer: not yet, but check back in ten years.)”

The craziness of PC conformity should be visible to all through the Cherry uproar.  Those in the thrall of cultural Marxism (the philosophy behind political correctness) don’t understand how Cherry could have even come up with something like that about visors.

Egalitarian levelists are outraged every time someone makes a generalization about any group of people.  It doesn’t matter whom.  I’m sure even with skin cancer they tried to initially argue that all groups are effected equally.  Utopians hate individual variation and that’s the basis of why they came down on Cherry.  Specifics don’t matter.  They want us all to pretend that what is…is not.  They are so irrational that some Quebec politicians called Cherry a racist even though Cherry and those who torment him are both members of the Caucasian race.  

When I heard about the story, all I could think is why now?  Don Cherry’s always been the same colorful guy and he’s been saying the same things since I wore Tough Skin jeans.  He still dresses in three inch high shirt collars and dons clothing with patterns louder than ten feminists placed on dietary restriction.  He is old time hockey and that’s why we love him.  That’s why he’s a star.

What’s changed is not Cherry, it’s the western world.  Nowadays, governments race one another to see who can be first to apologize for and condemn any spontaneous behavior in which its citizens engage.  The real story behind the kerfuffle is that it took so long for him to placed under the stiletto heel of the Canadian government.  

Personally, I don’t have any particular prejudices regarding visors in the NHL,  European players or the Quebecois, but I am a Don Cherry fan.  I admire Don for the same reason that I love hockey.  It’s a man’s game (yes, you heard me); a man’s game of grace, speed, fury, precision and aggression.  We should be grateful that it was created, and we should also be grateful that Don Cherry’s on earth to describe its virtues and vices. 

We hockey fans are not the easily offended types.  In this age of pseudo-multiculturalism, Don Cherry provides a level of diversity absent from most of our lives.  It’s sad to acknowledge that there will be no place for a young Don Cherry in Canada’s pansified future, but there wouldn’t be any places for the sort of guys who defended Fort Malden either. 

Bernard Chapin

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