Cherry’s Mouth is Louder than His Suits

Don Cherry and his eyesore suits have rubbed me the wrong way twice already this young season.  He is generally accepted as a book end authority on NHL hockey.  He does possess a wide range of experience, though most of it not at the NHL level, and that experience ended in 1972.  His total NHL level participation combined as a player and coach is 401 games and his perspective of the ice is 37 years out of touch.

Cherry in one of his worst.

The first time he just grated me the wrong way was when Flyers forward Scott Hartnell bit Penguins Defenseman Kris Letang’s finger.  It was pretty obvious what happened despite the lack of video evidence that Letang had a good chunk missing from one of his digits.  The interviews that followed had Letang calling out Hartnell telling him to tell the media what really happened.  Hartnell received no sanction from the league’s discipline man Colin Campbell.

The Saturday day after the incident Don Cherry decided that Letang was a whining cry baby and derided him on the Saturday Night HNIC broadcast on October 10th.  He didn’t chide Campbell or the league for not even asking Eric Furlatt, Dean Morton, Don Henderson, or Jean Morin who were the on ice officials that night, what exactly had happened or what had they seen before handing down the no-action merited decision.  He simply decided to be a loud mouth on his Coach’s Corner pulpit and make fun of Letang, who had a legitimate gripe.

“What were your fingers doing in Hartnell’s mouth?” Is the question Cherry asks on his lil’ segment.  I’ll answer for Tanger.  Gloves come off moron.  In a scrum all kinds of crazy things happen.  I guess if your sum total of actual NHL playing experience exceeded one whole game you might and a semblance of an insight as to what can occur at that level.  Prior to tonight’s tilt Letang has played 160 more games than you at the top and owns one more Stanley Cup ring.  You talk like some kind of warrior, like you battled in the NHL trenches for so long.  You played ONE game in the NHL to go with 69 AHL games.  No doubt you did some good things at the AHL level and for Team Canada as both a player and coach but I think the need to be flamboyant has gone to your head.  Your mouth is now louder than your suits and it’s obviously big enough for you to keep sticking both feet in over and over.  Maybe we should ask Alpo Suhonen, or all of those French and European candy-asses who actually want to protect their eyes by wearing a shield for their opinion of your commentary.

Cherry’s idiocy wasn’t done with Letang however.  He took his opportunity to dogpile on along with the Atlanta media in going after Matt Cooke for his hit on Senators forward Shean Donovan.  The spot was supposed to be about Montreal Canadiens winger Georges Laraque but it didn’t take long for Cherry to jump on the bash wagon, despite  Donovan having already said prior to the report “it’s not the dirtiest check I’ve ever seen” and “Obviously, I let my guard down.”

Cherry gets away with what he does in my opinion due to his staunch patriotism and support of the troops of which there can be no doubt.  Now I’m not Canadian, but I am a veteran and I am not so sure I’d really shake his hand if I met him.  He has made many comments that are divisive on cultural levels in the past and despite his status as a CBC viewer selected Top 10 Greatest Canadaian (and the only living one not to be given the Order of Canada).  I don’t know how he is 7th and Wayne Gretzky is 10th on that list, but I digress.  Maybe my northern brothers have more of a penchant from time to time for the loud, obnoxious, and disruptive than I thought.

“I’ve been trying to tell you people for so long about the Russians, what kind of people they are, and you just love them in Canada with your multiculturalism.  They’re quitters and evidently they take a lot of drugs, too.” – Don Cherry

Cherry obviously doesn't have a suit in his collection that says "Bigot"

Let hope that’s not the kind of thing they like.  It surely has no place coming from on of the 10 best Canadians ever does it?  I know if I said something like that where I work I’d be gifted with a nice plain brown box with which to collect all of my personal effects.  That kind of talk is the talk of a bigot.  I almost put that word in the title of the piece but decided against as I doubted it would last long.  Cherry’s comment on Russians alone as a people is bigoted.  Combine it with what he has had to say in the past about the french (read French-Canadians sometimes) and Europeans shows that none of this is a slip of the tongue

“I Know exactly what I’m Saying, so that when I’m fired, it won’t be a slip of the tongue.  Everything I want to say I say.” – Don Cherry

Most people in the public spotlight try to disguise or dismiss their inherent discrimination towards others.  Cherry says he means it.  We should probably take him at his word.