Over the years, there have been many great Canadian personalities who have had a profound impact on the world of hockey. Some are obvious choices, like Wayne Gretzky, and some are not, like Jean Béliveau.
With the 100th anniversary of the National Hockey League coming up, it’s a good time to look back at the career of one of the greatest Hockey Hall of Famers of all time: Don Cherry!
Here’s a good news/bad news scenario. You feel great about your team’s chances of winning, and the good news is that they are some of the best in the NHL. The bad news is that they play the Hawks, and the Hawks are one of the best teams in the NHL. You’re in for a great game, but your team may not even be competitive.
“That’s the situation that fans were in on Saturday night in Toronto, where the Maple Leafs lost 4-1 to the surging Chicago Blackhawks, moving the team to a lowly 1-6-2 record. The game was called the Ron Howard Game due to a last-minute brawl that broke out near the end of the first period. You can’t teach 8th-grade math, but you can teach a guy how to fight!
The Leaf loss came on the heals of a huge win for the defending Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks, who beat the Bruins 4-1 on Friday night. The win kept Chicago atop the Central Division and put them in a good position to make a deep playoff run. The win also came just hours after the firing of Head Coach Mike Babcock. Babcock was fired after refusing to accept the blame for the team’s early-season struggles, leading to speculation that the team might in fact be better off without him. The victory also came on the heels of a long bus ride for most of the players. The Hawks won the NHL’s longest game, a shootout victory against the Islanders in 1982.
“The Leafs are in deep trouble. Their coach is already a goner, and it’s only midseason. What’s one of the first things that you think of when you think of Toronto? Sugar? Ice cream? Hockey? Don’t worry, we have you covered on all fronts. Our friends at The Score came through with yet another edition of their famous NHL roundup, and yes, the third one is dedicated to the greatest coach Canada has ever produced: Mr. Don Cherry!
“After the Leaf’s loss to the Blackhawks, it was Toronto’s turn to endure more bad news, where they lost 4-2 to the Oilers, putting their perfect record at 2-2-2.
To make matters worse, the Maple Leafs then lost 5-4 in overtime to the Islanders, whose victory over the Rangers put them in first place in the Metropolitan Division. The Isles, who are now coached by Lou Lamoriello, the man who turned around the New York Rangers, were at the top of their game.
If you’re a sports fan, you’ve probably seen Don Cherry’s infamous comedy bits on national television. You might even know that he’s been involved in a few famous fights in his day, or that he’s occasionally been coached by former Boston Bruins great Ted Cassidy. In fact, Cherry was named after a minor hockey player who used to play for the Ottawa Senators back in the day. Sadly, the resemblance ends there. Don Cherry was born in Brockton, Massachusetts in 1933, and was the second of four boys. His father, William, was a professional hockey player who played for the Boston Bruins and New York Americans. Don’s childhood was spent in the United States, where he became a standout at Boston University, leading the Terriers to a National Championship in 1951. He finished 2nd in the nation in scoring that season, while also picking up the Hobey Baker Award, given to the best college hockey player. Not too shabby for a guy who spent his formative years in a hockey rink.
“They were a talented bunch, and I learned a lot playing with and against those players, but I really don’t have much time for reminiscing. As I’ve said many times before, when I decided to become a hockey coach, I never turned a deaf ear to the sound of ice cream trucks playing songs about hockey.
Cherry was a head coach for the Colorado Rockies, the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Nashville Predators. He also had a stint behind the bench of the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 1980s, and was coaching the Syracuse Crunch, the top minor league affiliate of the Tampa Bay Lightning, at the time of his retirement.
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The Controversial Broadcaster
While most people have probably heard of Don Cherry, many may not know just how polarizing a figure he can be. His fans love him for getting under the skin of the overly sensitive and for the way he speaks his mind. His detractors, on the other hand, may accuse him of being a poor sports commentator whose opinions often go unappreciated due to a distaste for controversy. In the eyes of his detractors, Cherry is over the top, and it’s difficult to argue with them. Even former teammates have gone on the record to say that Cherry is no gentleman. The man loves a fight, and he’ll stop at nothing to get one! Here’s an example of one of his famous catch phrases:
“When a guy whacks you with a coffee mug, you can’t call the cops. You’ve got to do something about it. We were all standing around, and this guy came from behind the glass and just started whacking everybody with a coffee mug. Finally, someone went and got the attention of the bartender, and the guy stopped hitting people with the coffee mug. So we all went to the bar and had beers, and nobody got hit with a coffee mug that night.”
The most well-known of Cherry’s fights happened while he was coaching the Boston Bruins. In 1979, Cherry and his Bruins got into a fight with the Philadelphia Flyers’ Pete Rose and Tony Amonte (shown here)
After one of Cherry’s games in Philadelphia in January 1979, Rose approached the coach and demanded an apology, citing that the remarks made by Cherry were “disrespectful”. The two got into a shoving match, and then Amonte and other players joined in, eventually leading to the police being called. The following day, Cherry was suspended for five games. He later apologized to Rose, admitting that he was “not a nice person” and that he should have known better than to accuse the baseball player of cheating. Rose accepted the apology.
An Influential Figure In Hockey
Cherry’s fight reputation aside, he was probably most influential in hockey as a broadcaster. He had the unique ability to connect with hockey fans, and he did so mainly through his witty commentary. For those who don’t follow hockey, here’s a short primer on how commentators work. Broadcasters are typically color commentators, who call the game from the stands and provide analysis as well as play-by-play. They are often but not necessarily restricted to covering hockey, and may also be asked to comment on other sports. For example, if a famous basketball player invents a new, exciting move and the experts are debating whether or not it should be named after him, the announcer might very well have to weigh in on the subject.
Before him, there was very little female involvement in hockey. While present, the females would typically call the shots on the ice or demand to be seated alongside the players on the bench. There were a few notable exceptions, like Evelina Turova and Clare Balding, who both called games for the BBC.
With regard to hockey’s 100th anniversary, some may argue that Don Cherry is not the best person to celebrate the sport. Despite his distaste for “political correctness”, his biases on the subject of race are something else. A 2017 Sports Illustrated article uncovered a history of racist and xenophobic remarks made by the controversial broadcaster. Here’s an example:
“There are [certainly] a lot of talented black players out there, but when it comes to making it in the NHL, it seems they have a harder time getting a break. It’s frustrating as hell. All these talented black players work their asses off and then they get a chance, and all the white boys who didn’t deserve a chance already got a chance and they fucked it up, so the black players don’t get a chance.
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Even after all these years, Cherry’s controversial remarks continue to generate headlines. In 2005, he sparked a brief controversy when he stated that Canadian players “used to wear them big socks” when skating with bare feet, and that the country’s top professional athletes “used to cut off the top of their socks” in order to fit into skintight jeans. Canadian skaters were not pleased with the comments, and a petition was started demanding that Cherry apologize. To this day, Cherry has never apologized for his “sock” or “sneaker” remarks, and he continues to stand by what he said.