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Don Cherry fired from Sportsnet Hockey Night in Canada

His head has been on the chopping block for years. For many reasons, including his controversial non-sports opinions.
 
TheBigA said:
His head has been on the chopping block for years. For many reasons, including his controversial non-sports opinions.
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His xenophobia goes back to his earliest days as a CBC analyst, when he regularly denigrated the European-born players who were just then starting to enter the league -- first the Swedes and Finns for being too "soft," then the Russians and other Eastern Europeans for their countries' politics. It was easy enough to laugh him off back then, but it's a different world out there today.
 
CTListener said:
His xenophobia goes back to his earliest days as a CBC analyst, when he regularly denigrated the European-born players who were just then starting to enter the league -- first the Swedes and Finns for being too "soft,"
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I remember that from when he was a coach of the Colorado Rockies, and his team was accused of gooning up the Swedes. He came out after a game and asked the press, "Did we treat the Swedes OK? We don't want to hurt the Swedes." nd yes, everyone thought he was funny. But it was a real issue.
 
I remember him bringing the Colorado Rockies into the Pittsburgh Civic Arena to play
against awful Pens teams in the 70's. Never more than 5000 people in attendance.
Many of whom dumped their beers on him.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
I remember him bringing the Colorado Rockies into the Pittsburgh Civic Arena to play
against awful Pens teams in the 70's. Never more than 5000 people in attendance.
Many of whom dumped their beers on him.
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He is a fondly remembered coach of the Boston Bruins and an AHL legend as coach of the Rochester Americans for his championing of old-school, fight-filled hockey. That brand of hockey isn't played anywhere these days, not even at the minor league level, and the incredible skills that European players have entertained NHL fans with to this day (along with those of talented Canadian and American players) have made the on-ice product very watchable, even to 60-something "big bad Bruins" fans like me who used to love to see fights spice up the games.
 
Cherry's NHL playing career consisted of ONE GAME with the Boston Bruins in 1955.
Aside from that he was a career minor-leaguer (albeit at a time when there were only six NHL teams).
His late wife was from Hershey, Pennsylvania, where they met while he was playing for the Hershey Bears.

Cherry is 85 years old. You aren't going to get many 85-year olds to start being politically correct, and certainly not him.

Many are pointing out today the irony that Canada just re-elected a Prime Minister who had appeared in blackface, yet Cherry gets fired for this.
 
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FreddyE1977 said:
Cherry's NHL playing career consisted of ONE GAME with the Boston Bruins in 1955.
Aside from that he was a career minor-leaguer (albeit at a time when there were only six NHL teams).
His late wife was from Hershey, Pennsylvania, where they met while he was playing for the Hershey Bears.

Cherry is 85 years old. You aren't going to get many 85-year olds to start being politically correct, and certainly not him.

Many are pointing out today the irony that Canada just re-elected a Prime Minister who had appeared in blackface, yet Cherry gets fired for this.
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Yes, and his prejudice against white European hockey players never came close to getting him fired, while his remarks about the minority population of Toronto, which is largely from Asia, got him canned. Of course, he never questioned the loyalty of Borje Salming or any of the other Scandinavian targets of his sarcasm to their home countries or demanded that they all somehow become just as loyal to Canada as Canadian citizens are. Would he have been fired if he'd done something like that rather than just infer that they weren't hockey-tough? We'll never know.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
Many are pointing out today the irony that Canada just re-elected a Prime Minister who had appeared in blackface, yet Cherry gets fired for this.
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The PEOPLE re-elected their PM. HNIC fired Grapes after he refused to apologize. Apples and oranges.
 
He said nothing wrong. Sportsnet will lose viewers over this. A wise competitor would hire Cherry quickly and air him during the first intermission time of HNIC to further hurt Sportsnet. Only a snowflake would have a problem with what he said.
 
Not sure there really is a competitor to Hockey Night in Canada. Maybe the NHL Channel, but that would mean the sport would want to associate with a man who's widely viewed as the clown prince of hockey. Sure he's great for ratings. That's why he still had a job after years of controversial comments. But the sport wants to diversify and appeal to broader audiences, and I'm not sure that Cherry helps them accomplish that.
 
TheBigA said:
Not sure there really is a competitor to Hockey Night in Canada. Maybe the NHL Channel, but that would mean the sport would want to associate with a man who's widely viewed as the clown prince of hockey. Sure he's great for ratings. That's why he still had a job after years of controversial comments. But the sport wants to diversify and appeal to broader audiences, and I'm not sure that Cherry helps them accomplish that.
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There are millions of "old time hockey" fans both here and in Canada who have watched Grapes for years and years. He'd have a good audience. Aside from his wild dress I'm not sure anyone considers him a "clown prince". He is definitely colorful. If he has any shortcomings, he is too "inside" hockey. He talks players and hockey with the knowledge that only a lifetime attached to the sport can give and a lot of viewers are not that close (including me). It's sort of like listening to two very experienced and older baseball announcers talk about the retired players and the plays that made them great. And, of course, he is always "right".

Given his persona and time on air I would agree he didn't commit a sin bad enough to be fired but it could be a power struggle within his organization. And he did make his sponsor unhappy. Always a risk.
 
umfan said:
He said nothing wrong. Sportsnet will lose viewers over this. A wise competitor would hire Cherry quickly and air him during the first intermission time of HNIC to further hurt Sportsnet. Only a snowflake would have a problem with what he said.
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There are some predictions of a massive backlash a la Bob Prince or Ernie Harwell.
Personally I just don't see that happening.
 
TheBigA said:
In a related story:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports...es-coach-after-racist-slurs-revealed-n1093511

The coach of the Calgary Flames resigned after racist comments from 10 years ago were revealed.
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With no apologies to NBCnews I don't see any relation between the Cherry and Peters stories. Peters' accusations go far beyond what Cherry said and it was backed up by several players and former associates. Grapes may not be the most politically correct person in hockey employ but he doesn't deserve to be lumped in with a guy like Peters.
 
Don Cherry's program was always an opinion piece and in that format it is sometimes difficult to tell where the PC line is. Plus, Grapes has always been an old school type of guy, on-ice and on-air. I almost always enjoyed the banter between Grapes and Ron MacLean. I hope someone up north can put him back on air.
 
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