VIDEO: Toronto Sun talks with Don Cherry about "You people"

SportsNet's firing of Don Cherry from the "Coach's Corner" segment of Hockey Night in Canada has dominated the news in Canuckistan since it was announced on Sunday. Even the never-Trumpers at the CBC were forced to talk about it ahead of reports from the witch-hunt. All the (((controlled media))) ran short interviews with "Grapes", but only the Toronto Sun gave him over ten minutes to say his piece in full. Here's the video.



Further reading:
"Poor Len Canayen calls Cherry firing an insult to Canadians", WWW 12/11/19.
"Don Cherry was both right and wrong", by Tarek Fatah, Toronto Sun, 13/11/19.

VIDEO: Don Cherry for NHL Hall of Fame!

Poor Len `ere. Last night I was watching the Boston v Columbus game on Hockey Night in Canada, and I got to thinking about that Don Cherry (aka Donless Cherry -- that's what Ron Maclean calls him), who was all dressed up for May the 4th (geddit?) and talking about "When I had the Bruins and Bobby Orr..." And I got to thinking, why isn't Don Cherry in the National Hockey League Hall of Fame?!

Wikipedia calls Donald Stewart Cherry (born 5 February 1934) "a Canadian ice hockey commentator". He is more than that. He is THE Canadian ice hockey commentator. Along with Ron Maclean, he co-hosts the "Coach's Corner" intermission segment on Hockey Night in Canada, the longest-running show on Canadian TV. He is a Canadian icon, known for his outspoken manner, his nationalistic opinions [How does he get away with it, nowadays? Ed.] and his flamboyant dress (see pic). Those Edwardian shirt collars must be damn uncomfortable.

Don toiled for years with the AHL Rochester Americans, and was called up for one (1) game with the Boston Bruins, the only game he ever played in the NHL. He went on to coach the big bad Bruins for five seasons, during which he had the good fortune to have on the team Bobby Orr, one of othe greatest -- Don says THE greatest -- defencemen ever to play the game. He never lets us forget it (see above).

Mr Cherry was voted the seventh greatest Canadian on a CBC television special called, errr, The Greatest Canadian (duh). In March 2010, his life was dramatized in a two-part made-for-TV movie, Keep Your Head Up, Kid: The Don Cherry Story, based on a script written by his son, Timothy Cherry. In March 2012, CBC aired a sequel, The Wrath of Grapes: The Don Cherry Story II. And yet the selectors for the NHL Hall of Fame keep passing over him. I can't understand it.

Don Cherry IS famous, for:
- coaching Bobby Orr (see above)
- being a Canadian nationalist
- disliking European-born players, especially "chicken Swedes"
- loving Canadian guys in uniform: soldiers, cops and hockey player
- owning a succession of white bull terriers, all named "Blue"
- turning down an offer of appointment to the Canadian Senate
- other stuff

But what Don is most famous for, IMHO, is something that happened forty years and five days ago, on the evening of 10 May 1979. The Bruins were playing in the seventh game of the NHL Stanley Cup semi-finals against arch-enemies, the Montréal Canadiens. The series was tied 3 games each, and the winner of the 7th game would go on to play for Lord Stanley's silverware. Boston was ahead 3-1 going into the third period and looked to be on the verge of victory. The Habs responded with goals from Mark Napier and Guy Lapointe to tie the game. With just under four minutes to play, Rick Middleton managed to bounce a puck off the arm of goaltender Ken Dryden and into the net to take a 4-3 lead. Here's what happened next.



With only 2:34 to go, the Bruins were caught on a sloppy line change -- too many men on the ice... two-minute penalty! Changing the lines is the coach's responsibility, so, as Don Cherry later told the Grope and Flail, "It was my fault. The guy couldn't have heard me yell. I grabbed two other guys trying to go over the boards. That would have made eight on the ice. Might as well have let them go."

Not wasting an opportunity, Montréal coach Scotty Bowman put out his elite power-play unit: Guy Lafleur, Larry Robinson, Serge Savard, Steve Shutt and Jacques Lemaire. Unlike Don Cherry, all five players are in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Lafleur scored the a beauty, beating Gilles Gilbert on the short side, to tie the game at 4-4. In the overtime that ensured, les Glorieux went on to win. They would then beat the New York Rangers to win yet another Stanley Cup.

Later that May, Bruins GM Harry Sinden fired Don Cherry. But here's the thing. To this day, a clip of Don responding to the derision of the Montréal crowd is still included in the intro to every "Coach's Corner". He's a classy guy, an asset to the game and to Canada, and should damn well be in the Hall of Fame, EH!

VIDEO: Poor Len Canayen: The Ultimate Six hockey stars

Fans of professional hockey will be aware that the National Hockey League was founded 100 years ago, in the fall of 1917. It is 8 years younger than the Montréal Canadiens, founded in 1909, but a 100th anniversary is still something to be celebrated, and when the organization has a promoter like (((Gary Bettman))) (no hockey man, he) at its head, you can be sure the PR machine will be in top gear. Which it is.

Canada Post has been quick to jump on the hypewagon. They've been issuing stamps featuring hockey and hockey players since 1955 -- top that! NFL --
and this year have published a set of six stamps commemorating the Ultimate Six Canadian Hockey Legends. Here they are.

These are the six Canucks (meaning their nationality, not their team!) whose names, numbers and achievements recall legendary moments in the history of the game. This being a project of the Canadian government, it will be noted that there are three French-Canadians (Maurice Richard, Jean Béliveau, and Mario Lemieux) and three Anglo-Canadians (Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky). Which is as it should be. (OK, Gretzky is a Polish name, but No. 99 was born in beautiful Brantford ON.)

It will also be noted that two of the Ultimate Six played for the Bleu-Blanc-et-Rouge. Not one Toronto Maple Leaf is included in the group. Why the picture of Rocket Richard is in black-and-white and the rest in colour is a mystery, but hey, that's Canada -- a land of mystery. Walt approves of the choices, and recommends that you buy some of these stamps, not to put on letters -- who does that, in 2017? -- but just to look at them when you feel sad that hockey ain't what it used to be. Where else can you get a picture of Jean Béliveau (my personal favourite) for just 85 Canadian cents (plus tax, of course)?

BONUS VIDEO: I am shocked, shocked that Walt [and Ed.! Ed.] have never shared with you the excellent story of "The Hockey Sweater", written and narrated for the National Film Board video by Roch Carrier. Here it is. No subtitles. If you gonna come on top da country `ere you better learn to talk like we do!



Cliquez ici pour voir la version française.

Amazing American author knows his hockey

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be singing the praises of a book about hockey penned ["keyboarded", surely. Ed.] by an American. But today's the day.

C. Michael Hiam was born in Boston in 1962, and came of age as a hockey fan at the height of the Bobby Orr era. As an undergraduate, he both played hockey and attended as many Bruins games as he could. Today, Hiam is a licensed psychologist, living in Newton MA. When he's not picking wigs, he coaches in the Newton Youth Hockey Association.

His book, Eddie Shore and That Old Time Hockey, is a masterpiece of sports literature, or at least hockey literature. On the subject of what led him to write it, Hiam has to says:

I initially set out to write a book about the Big Bad Bruins of the Bobby Orr years, late 1960s and early 1970s. A few weeks into my research, however, I realized, for various reasons, that I this was not a book that I really wanted to write and so began to cast around for another subject.

Eddie Shore came to mind, and I was surprised to learn that relatively little biographical work had been done on him despite the fact that he was such a giant — and a colorful and controversial one at that — of NHL history. So, I buckled down and began to write about his life and hockey times.

For me, [the book] represents the days when the sport was considerably more violent than it is today, when it was (with the rare exception) purely Canadian, when most players were expected to give generously of their blood, and where colorful personalities, both on and off the ice, defined the game.

What I (Walt) find amazing and praiseworthy is that this American superfan never once minimizes the Canadianness of the game, as it was back in the day. Nor does he attempt to inflate the contribution made by his compatriots. Americans who played and developed the professional game receive due recognition, but no more.

Not only that. Hiam takes great care to get his Canadian spelling and geography correct, right down to the accents on the French names. Considering that virtually everyone who played with or against Eddie Shore -- including many virtual unknowns -- gets a mention in the book, Hiam has done a helluva job on his research. In fact, the five pages of source notes make a fine starting point for anyone who wants to read all there is to read about hockey and the NHL.

One thing bothers me though. Hiam tells Shore stories by the score [Still punning, eh? Ed.] but never repeats, even to deny it, the anecdote told by Don Cherry (the Mouth of the North) about Shore's method of training a goalie to stand up. Exasperated by a goalie who went down too early, Shore, during practice, threw a rope over one of the arena rafters, and tied the other end in a noose around the hapless goalie's neck, forcing him to stay upright or be hanged. So the story goes. Wonder if it's true...

Eddie Short and That Old Time Hockey is published in the USA by Random House and in Canada by McLelland & Stewart. Walt recommends the book most highly to anyone who knows who Art Ross was.